


Endgame

by copperleaves



Series: Learning to See [1]
Category: Criminal Minds (US TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe, Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Case Fic, Gen, Nerdiness, Unsub | Unknown Subject
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-08-06
Updated: 2020-08-15
Packaged: 2021-03-06 04:07:02
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 11
Words: 29,436
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25747126
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/copperleaves/pseuds/copperleaves
Summary: Elle Greenaway's abrupt departure has left a hole in the BAU, and a young woman from Gideon's past shows up to fill it. She has secrets--big ones--and Hotch has even bigger reservations. But halfway across the country the Detroit PD receives a woman's severed leg in the mail, so for now no one has time to argue personnel changes.
Relationships: Spencer Reid & Original Female Character(s), The BAU Team & Original Character(s)
Series: Learning to See [1]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1885702
Comments: 20
Kudos: 38





	1. One

**Author's Note:**

> Welp ain't this a kick in the head? I originally wrote this fic back in 2009, after a several years' break from fic writing. Now here I am, back again, after another long-ish break, to completely rewrite it. I've recently gotten back into Criminal Minds and wanted to check out my old fic. This one? Not that good, y'all!
> 
> This fic takes place in s2, after Elle, before Hankel. My OC is sort of a replacement for Prentiss, but I'll probably end up changing that when I redo the sequel to this fic, because I love Prentiss and I miss her.
> 
> Oh, the violence mentioned in the warnings isn't much different from what would be on the actual show. I just thought better safe than sorry.
> 
> I hope everyone enjoys this new, revised edition of "Endgame." Without further ado...

**You cried for night; it falls: now cry in darkness.**  
Samuel Beckett

The night was deep and lonely, deathly dark and icy cold. But one man—a hunter—who strolled the back alleys didn't care: darkness was his home, his safety, his love and companion. The cold kept him sharp, kept him alive. Heat would only soften his senses and dull his keen mind as he slipped through the sleeping streets. She was there, somewhere, he just had to find her. As he rounded a corner, he saw her, a vision of light and beauty and young, coltish grace.

"Hey, sugar," she said in a heavy Southern accent unusual to Detroit, "you lookin' for a date?"

Tossing back a lock of long, teased blond hair, she sauntered up to him, hips swinging, and he grinned coldly. "Yeah, it just so happens that I am." He threw his arm around her and led her away from the glaring streetlights, across the street and back into the comforting darkness of the alley.

"Money first," she said as his hand ran up her thigh.

He took a long, deep breath, enjoying the heady, cloying scents of cheap perfume, sweat and…fear. God how he loved the smell of fear! In a vicious motion, he turned her around and pressed her against the wall. Pulling something from his pocket, he ran it gently, lovingly up the side of her neck.

She whimpered and tried to wriggle away from his heavy grasp, but he only held on tighter. "I don't have any money," he told her, his breath hot and fierce in her ear. He pulled the knife across in her throat in a quick, hard motion and she let out a little gulp. "But I think that's the last thing on your mind right now."

Releasing the girl, he took a step back and watched the blood drain from the cut in her throat and gather in a pool all around her. In the darkness it was black, but in his mind's eye it was bright crimson, like rose petals.

"Goodnight, sweet princess. May flights of angels wing you to your rest."

With a feral smile, he raised the knife again and set about his work with the precision of a careful, skilled butcher.

* * *

It was a quiet morning at the FBI Academy in Quantico, Virginia, even on the usually hectic floor that housed the Bureau's Behavior Analysis Unit. The team members worked at their desks, tackling old paperwork, or, in one agent's case, a particularly challenging game of Solitaire. Senior Supervisory Special Agent Jason Gideon was in his office updating his kill book, the journal he kept to record the victims of the cases the team worked.

Today was a good day, because today he got to add an entry to his victory list at the front of the book. These names belonged to the victims he'd helped to save. He smiled as he added the new name, and he was still smiling when there was a knock on his office door.

"Come in," he called, assuming it was a member of his team, most likely Spencer looking for a game of chess. He would enjoy some chess right now, as a matter of fact. He looked up, over the rim of his reading glasses, and his smile slowly faded as he absorbed the sight before him.

"What the hell are you doing here?" he said when he could speak again.

She lifted dark brows over clear, glass-green eyes and her mouth quirked, but not enough to flash the dimple that he knew hid in her left cheek. "Hello to you too, Jason," she said in a voice that seemed too low and smoky for someone so young.

He yanked off his reading glasses and tossed them onto the desk. "You've got no business here. What the hell were they thinking, sending—"

She lifted a hand, briefly silencing the angry flow, and stepped into his office. The door closed quietly behind her and he glared first at it, then back at her. "You requested a replacement for Agent Greenaway, yes?"

"Aaron Hotchner is the agent in charge of this team. All personnel changes go through him, not me."

"And yet," he said, her tone cool.

"And yet. Here you are. Like a bad penny."

Her head turned away, as though from a blow, and her eyes closed, briefly. When she opened them again she pinned him with a baleful glare. "It's been three years. Three years, and you never even bothered—you could have reached out. When you worked the mole case. You were still profiling agents even then."

He sat back in his chair. "You know about the mole case?" That case was highly classified, covered up by the CIA. No one wanted to admit when one of their own went rogue, especially a career man like Bruno Hawks.

She dropped a thick file on the center of his desk and sat, crossing one leg over the other. "They called me before they called you. I refused to do their digging for them."

"You disobeyed a direct order?" he said, though something in his tone told her he wasn't surprised. He didn't ask why they'd called her; he felt certain she wouldn't answer him anyway.

She shifted in the chair. "It's not that simple. The division of the Agency I report to doesn't…accept orders…from anyone else. We're our own entity. I thought you knew that."

"I did." He leaned forward again and rested his palm on the file. "I thought your unit was largely defunct."

"It is," she said. Her head tilted as she studied him. "Since we last met, I've been on…not leave, exactly. Retainer, maybe? Still employed by the CIA, still expected to keep all their secrets, and still available should they ever call."

"Hm."

"Always the best poker face, Agent Gideon."

He ignored that. "So they called you in after three years to fill a hole in my team?"

"No," she said. "I requested the position when I heard it was available."

That gave him pause, but only for a moment. "You aren't FBI. We've got dozens of qualified agents—actual profilers—who would be better for this position than you."

"What defines an _actual profiler_?" she said. "Education? How many of Dr. Reid's Ph.D.s are in psychology?"

A perfunctory wave of his hand dismissed that entirely. "Spencer Reid is an exceptional case."

She laughed, but there was a bitterness to it he didn't like. "As am I."

"You're a spy, Dr. Jackson. Not a profiler."

She leaned toward him and tapped a fingertip against the folder beneath his hand. "It's my file, Jason. The real one. Not that fairytale bullshit they fed you for your profile."

He made a low noise of amusement and relaxed into his chair. Rubbed his hands together, his face a picture of self-satisfied bonhomie. "Is what why you're here? Because you think I profiled you?"

A quick, surprised blink. "Isn't that why—? That was your job. It's why they brought you in."

"You're right, it was my job. But you." He chuckled and shook his head. "You were off limits. Doctor Elliot Jackson, youngest CIA agent I've ever seen, if not the youngest in the Company's history. Member of an elite and hush-hush unit that worked outside regular Agency parameters…and right smack in the middle of a multiple-murder investigation that by all rights should have been Bureau jurisdiction. And they wouldn't let me within a hundred feet of this." He tapped the file. "Or of you. Figuratively speaking."

"Oh," she said, drawing the syllable out. "And you assumed they were protecting me. Covering up—what I'd done. The murders."

"No," he said with another of those dismissive flicks of his fingers. "They wouldn't let me work the case, but from what I saw, those killings were done by a man in his mid-to-late thirties, not a petite woman in her early twenties."

"Okay, then I don't understand. If you know I'm not a killer, why all this hostility? The way you vanished, I thought—"

"They warned me off of you," he said.

She froze. "I'm sorry?"

He let out a sigh. He'd met Elliot Jackson before Boston, before his breakdown and absence from the BAU. He'd been consulting with the CIA, profiling agents and suggesting the best assignments for them. Some of that had come back to bite him in the ass on the mole investigation she'd mentioned, but he didn't regret any of the calls he'd made then.

Except for maybe one.

He knew next to nothing about her unit, and the files of the agents he'd profiled from it had been heavily redacted. The interviews had been limited, too, which frustrated him and caused multiple clashes with his bosses and hers. She had been the last agent on his list, and shortly before her turn came the first body in what would be known as the Silar Creek Slayer case dropped.

He'd offered his help and been refused. The Agency was working it, even though it was on American soil and therefore out of their jurisdiction. No one bothered explaining to Gideon why that was possible, and all his questions had met with classic CIA stonewalling.

So he'd shrugged and gone back to the job he'd been called to do—except suddenly all the files he'd collected were confiscated and he'd been denied access to the agents. Especially, he was instructed, Elliot Jackson. He was not to contact her, speak to her, or otherwise seek her out at any time now or in the future. She was being returned to the field, he was told, and that was the end of that.

His time with the Agency abruptly over, he'd gratefully returned to the BAU and its usual lineup of serial killers and kidnappers.

He explained all of this to her now and watched most of the color drain from her face. "Maybe I should have fought harder against it, but it didn't seem like they were giving me much wiggle room," he said.

"No," she said, her voice quiet. "They wouldn't have."

"So that's it. I thought you were in the field. And even if you weren't, I had explicit instructions to stay away from you."

"But apparently your mentor gene was activated, because you went out and found Dr. Reid," she said. "Another exceptional case for the great Jason Gideon to mold in his image."

His eyes narrowed. "Is that what you thought I was doing with you?"

"We didn't really know each other long enough, did we?"

"So you figured you'd offer me a second chance?"

"The thought occurred to me." In control once more, she rose to her feet and smoothed the lines of her black wool skirt. "Read the file, Jason. Then destroy it. Then call me. My number's on the first page."

"Wait," he said, stopping her at the door.

She cast him a look over her shoulder, brows lifted in a question.

"Why would they call you in on that mole case?" he said with a frown.

A sphinx-like smile and a wave toward his desk. "Read the file."

Part of him didn't want to give her the satisfaction of opening it as soon as she was gone, but he knew that was petty of him. And it didn't matter anyway: she played on his innate curiosity and his need to solve a puzzle. He'd been denied a chance to solve the puzzle that was Elliot Jackson once, and he was eager to change that.

Sliding his reading glasses back into place, he opened the file and dove in.

Whatever he might have been expecting, it sure as hell wasn't what he found.


	2. Two

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> JJ briefs them on a new case in Detroit, and Hotch learns what made Gideon so eager to add Jackson to the team. Unflappable Hotch is flapped.

**Two Weeks Later**

Jackson was nervous. Though she had more than earned an assignment she actually chose for once, her superiors at the Agency weren't thrilled about it. They'd liked her quietly under their jurisdiction where they could keep an eye on her, tell her what to do, and otherwise control her every move. Now, while she was still technically an agent of the CIA, this Special Liaison position gave a degree of autonomy she'd never had before.

So why the nerves? She should be excited, not nervous. She was excited, of course. She was setting out on her own, starting something new…but what if she couldn't cut it? What if she washed out and had to go crawling back to the damn Company with her tail between her legs?

No. That wasn't going to happen. Jackson had seen her share of Bad Shit. She knew the BAU wasn't going to be a cakewalk, but she had been trained by the best. And Gideon had read her file.

With a fortifying breath, Jackson stepped off the elevator and onto the BAU's floor. Gideon waited for her, and the contrast between this greeting and the one she'd been met with two weeks ago was night and day.

"Jack!" he called, striding toward her. "I'm so glad you're here." He started to offer his hand to shake, remembered her aversion, and smiled instead. "Perfect timing; we were just sitting down for a briefing. You can meet everyone at once and hit the ground running. This way."

_Jack_ , huh? So they were already back to a nickname basis? What a difference two weeks and one very fat file made.

"Thank you, Gideon. It's good to be here," she said. As they approached the conference room, she briefly touched his arm to stop him. "Jason, wait, I need to ask you…"

"Hmm?" he muttered, distracted.

"Have you told your team about me?"

"That you're coming? Hotch might have mentioned it."

"I don't mean that. I mean about…" She gestured toward her head. "My file."

His gaze suddenly focused as he caught on. "Oh. That. No." He frowned. "Jack. I won't have you reading my team."

She looked insulted. "My first and most important rule: never read anyone without their permission."

Gideon stared at her a moment, eyebrows raised.

"I'm serious!" she said. "I wouldn't break that for them, and I won't break it for you, either. If you want your team to know about me, tell them. They obviously won't believe you, but it's easy to prove without being at all invasive. It's your call."

He mulled it over a few moments. "We'll see how it goes. Come on; they're waiting for us."

All talk in the room stopped when Gideon entered with his newest protégé. Jackson hesitated in the doorway, trying not to fidget, and he gestured impatiently for her to enter. She stepped inside and closed the door behind her, realizing with that simple gesture she had closed the door on her career with the Agency. Now she had to prove herself to the members of the BAU.

Hotch nodded to Gideon, then to Jackson. "Dr. Jackson, welcome. I'm SSA Aaron Hotchner. Please, come in."

Gideon had warned her that Agent Hotchner hadn't been thrilled by her appointment to his unit, but he seemed cordial enough. Jackson allowed herself to relax a fraction. "I'm pleased to be here, Agent Hotchner," she told him with a smile that transfused her normally cool features with inviting warmth.

Though he didn't like being maneuvered—and Elliot Jackson's abrupt transfer to his unit felt like just that—Hotch hadn't earned his position as Unit Chief lightly. The team was the key to their success, and they all took their cues from the team leader. Jason Gideon had vouched for her, Hotch reminded himself. Gideon apparently trusted her, though Hotch knew he wasn't telling him everything.

She was a spook. What else could he expect?

"Well. Let's introduce you," he said, offering a brief smile. "Everyone, this is Dr. Elliot Jackson. She'll be working with us from now on as a special liaison on semi-permanent loan from the CIA. Dr. Jackson, the team: Agents Derek Morgan and Jennifer Jareau, Dr. Spencer Reid, and Agent Penelope Garcia, our technical analyst."

They all greeted her with varying looks of curiosity and interest. She couldn't help but smile at Garcia's colorful ensemble; took note of Reid's awkward wave to avoid a handshake she didn't offer; wondered what Hunky Leading Man lab had grown Derek Morgan, and how he'd ended up at Quantico instead of on the cover of a magazine somewhere.

Speaking of potential cover models, Agent Jareau re-introduced herself as JJ before lifting the remote control she held. "I was just about to begin the briefing if you'd like to take a seat."

"Of course. Let's not delay further."

JJ pointed the remote at a projection screen and hit a button. Photos of an alley, bloodstained and dirty, began to flash over the screen, along with the mug shot of a girl much too young to be appearing in mug shots.

"Our victim is Lacey Middleton, age eighteen. She was working as a prostitute two nights ago in Detroit, Michigan when apparently she was approached by our UNSUB. He took her into this alley where he slit her throat, dismembered her, and removed several of her body parts. He left others wrapped in newspaper."

She clicked a few more times, and pictures of neat, bloodstained bundles tied in butcher's twine appeared.

"He took the time to dismember her and wrap the body parts in an alley?" Morgan said with a frown. "That doesn't make sense. A blitz attack in a potentially public location points to a disorganized UNSUB, while this presentation points to an organized one."

"He would have to be practiced," Reid said. "An experienced hunter or butcher can break down a deer carcass in less than five or ten minutes."

"This can't be his first victim," Jackson said. "The packages are too…obsessive. Perfected. He probably had a place to take them before, and something's changed for him, so he was forced out into the open."

"New girl's right; this looks like a deviation in an established MO. JJ, you said _victim,_ singular. Is there evidence of any more?" Morgan said.

She grimaced and flipped to a new slide. "She's the first victim Detroit PD has found intact…so to speak."

"Intact?" Garcia said with a little squeak. "You call this intact?"

"The day Lacey's body was found, these packages were mailed to the Detroit authorities," JJ said. The screen showed several shots of bloody newspaper bundles, each one opened to reveal a body part.

"Oh God," Garcia whispered as she ducked her head.

"How many?" Hotch said, brow furrowed.

"They've received only three actual pieces, but six different blood types have been found on newspapers displaying different dates."

"All working girls?" Gideon said.

"So far," JJ confirmed.

"Clearly he's been at this a while."

"The earliest date on the newspapers is March 6, 2001," JJ said.

"The public style of this one is obviously an escalation," Reid said, frowning as he studied the pictures JJ passed around. "And, look. You can see from these photos that the earlier victims were dismembered much more cleanly." He pointed at the ends of the severed limbs in the photographs. "He was in a hurry, very aware of his public surroundings with this new murder. It seems like he did have a kill site before."

"An eviction would certainly be cause for escalation," Jackson said, leaning closer to Reid to examine where he indicated.

"Um…," Reid stuttered a moment, distracted by the subtle, spicy perfume that drifted toward him as her arm brushed his when she reached for one of the pictures.

"Right. Eviction," he said as a stall tactic while he struggled to grab the threads of his scattered thoughts. "Or the breakup of a relationship. A divorce, maybe. He might have been kicked out of the house."

"These girls usually stick together for safety," Morgan said. "He would probably have been watching them for a while, waiting until one of them broke away from the others, or until he found one who spent a lot of time alone."

"Or he frequents prostitutes in general, so they recognized him and didn't see him as a threat," said Gideon.

"Like the Green River Killer," Reid said. "Gary Ridgway confessed to cruising areas known for prostitution, and that he often picked up girls he didn't murder as a sort of dry-run in his search for the perfect victim."

"We need to see those newspapers," Jackson said, squinting at the pictures. "We need to know all the dates, to see if he's speeding up."

"Bring a coat," Morgan said. "It's gonna be cold in Michigan."

"All right, everyone," Hotch said as he stood, "wheels up in an hour."

As the team filed out, Hotch hung back a moment. "Dr. Jackson."

She stopped; readied her smile before she turned to face him. "Agent Hotchner," she said.

He studied her, struggling against the BAU's main rule: never profile your team. He wanted to understand this woman, why she was here, why Gideon had been so adamant about having her. After a moment he nodded. "You did well in there, Dr. Jackson."

Her smile went from forced to genuine. "Thank you, sir. I intend to earn my place here."

"Gideon told me you have no behavioral training."

"Not as you would understand it, no."

He frowned. "I'm not sure what that means."

There was a brief hesitation while she considered how to reply. "The profiles you build are highly-educated guesswork. What I was trained to do is more concrete."

His look was skeptical, to say the least. "There's very little concrete about the human mind, Dr. Jackson."

"That is…" She gave a brief chuckle. "That is very true, and something I hope you'll remember going forward."

"I'm not sure I understand what you mean by that, either."

"How much did Agent Gideon tell you about me?" she said.

It seemed like a change of subject, but he knew it wasn't, and his eyes narrowed a fraction. "Not much. He met you three years ago when he was assigned to profile certain CIA agents, assess their suitability for field work. He didn't go into detail about your profile, if that's what has you concerned."

"No," she said with a brief wave. "He didn't profile me. At least, not at the time. I imagine he has now, knowing Gideon."

Hotch tried not to smile, but his mouth twitched up a bit anyway. She might not be a profiler by training, but she had Gideon pegged. He continued the rundown of her bio. "You're twenty-seven, hold dual Ph.D.s in fields entirely unrelated to Agency or Bureau work, and, oddly, the CIA recruited you directly out of high school. That's not usually how it works."

"Mmm," she said, a mild sound of agreement. "Spencer Reid was appointed to the BAU at twenty-two, directly out of the Academy. I'm pretty sure that's not how _that_ works, either."

She'd done her research. Of course she had; she was a spook. "True, but your file didn't mention a one eighty-seven IQ or eidetic memory."

"No, I'm not quite on Dr. Reid's level. But, just as his mind is…extraordinary in ways we don't entirely understand, so is mine. And mine just happened to interest the Agency a great deal."

"I see," he said, though he really didn't. He crossed his arms over his chest and the lines around his mouth deepened. "Are you going to tell me what that means, or make me guess? I hardly have the time or the patience for games."

Her face scrunched in frustration and she rubbed at the bridge of her nose. "Then you really aren't going to like what I say next. Pick a number."

"I'm sorry?"

"I said, pick a number. Any number. Just. Pick it, and hold it in your mind."

He let out an impatient sigh, but at her look he bit it off. "Fine," he said.

"Eight? Really? I said any number at all and you go single digit?"

"This is ridiculous. What exactly—"

"Humor me, Agent Hotchner. Please? Try again. A bigger number this time."

He shot her a brief glare, but it morphed into a stone-faced stare as she rattled off a number so big she had to take a breath in the middle.

"Sorry, I'm not sure what to call that many decimal places. Trillion? Billion? I start to lose track when numbers approach the GDP of small nations."

"I don't understand," he said, each word enunciated in a tense, clipped tone. "Is this some kind of joke? Gideon's idea of a joke?"

"Are we laughing?"

Her serenity was infuriating, and he paced away from the table, to the door and back again. He gripped the back of a chair with one hand, kneading the pleather upholstery like a stress ball. "A pair of lucky guesses," he said at last. "Probability says I'd choose a number between one and ten the first time, and the second time—I don't even know for sure what number I had in my head once you started to speak. It was too many digits."

"As you say," she agreed. "Would you like to try something else?" She held out a small hand. "I can read you better if we touch, but I'd never do so without your permission. Very intelligent people, like you and your team, tend project your thoughts like giant, flashing billboards, but I learned to block very well during my time with the Company. I shouldn't have any trouble with that here."

His knees felt weak. He pulled out the chair he'd been squeezing and dropped into it. Dragged the pitcher and a glass closer. Some of the water sloshed onto the table as he poured, but enough made it in that he was able to take a long drink before he lowered the glass to stare at her with wide eyes.

"This is why Gideon wanted you so badly," he said.

"Yes."

"It's impossible."

"Yet you believe it. It doesn't take a mind reader to see that. You're a very logical man, Agent Hotchner, and you want to write it off as coincidence or luck, but you know that isn't possible—and you also know that something like this explains Jason's insistence that I join your team, despite my lack of training."

"No. I don't believe it."

She tried to hide her impatience. "Think of a word," she said. "Any language. If I can't pronounce it I'll write—oh!" She let out a surprised laugh. "That isn't very nice, Agent Hotchner."

"It's the first word that came to mind," he said through gritted teeth.

"Well. I suppose that could be a lucky guess, too. Your body language speaks volumes." She scrubbed at her forehead and sat across from him. "Look, I know how this must seem to you. I can't explain it; I have no idea how it works or why I have it. The CIA has been testing me since I was twelve years old, and if they found any answers, they didn't share them with me. All I know is what I can do. I think my ability can be an asset to your team, and Gideon agrees with me. Otherwise he wouldn't have pushed so hard."

"Mind reading isn't exactly admissible in court," he snapped.

"No. But that isn't really how this will work. I don't read anyone without their permission, and that includes suspects. I can't wring a confession out of someone who doesn't want to give it. What I can do is pick up hints…leads…that can lead us to the evidence we need. Or that can help connect the dots."

Hotch absorbed this in silence, thinking it over. He took another sip of water and stared into the glass as though the clear liquid held the answers he sought. At last he looked up at her, his dark eyes hooded. "He'll want you to read suspects."

"Yes. Crime scenes, too, probably."

That gave him pause, but only for a moment. "Did the CIA send you here?"

She laughed before she could stop it. "No. Not at all."

She leaned forward, clasping her hands in front of her like a plea. "Imagine the implications of a gift like mine," she said. "I didn't want to be their weapon. I'm a human being. They wanted me to use my ability to hurt people, to get their information _at all costs_ , _for the good of the country_." She gave a quick, sharp shake of her head.

"They didn't care what it cost me, or what it turned me into. I came here in the hopes that I could still use my abilities, but on my terms. I want to catch the bad guys, Agent Hotchner, but I don't want to become a bad guy doing it."

"Gideon knows all this?" he said after a time.

"Yes. He's read my file. The real one, not the dummy version you've read."

It was madness. Pure insanity. The woman was delusional, and so, apparently, was Gideon. His PTSD had finally given way to full-blown psychosis.  
Except Hotch knew that wasn't the case. Yes, Gideon still struggled with the leftover trauma from Boston, but he was sane. Rational and connected to reality. If he believed all of this…if he'd read her official CIA file….

Hotch let out a long sigh as he stood. "The rest of the team will need to know some of this eventually," he said.

"It would probably be helpful."

He nodded, adjusting his cuffs. "The plane takes off in an hour, Dr. Jackson. I expect to see you there."

She pushed up from the chair with a relieved grin. "Thank you, Agent Hotchner. And…everyone at the Agency called me Jack."

He raised an eyebrow. "That's my son's name."

"Oh. Well. I can see how that might be awkward for you."

"Indeed. See you in an hour, Dr. Jackson."

It wasn't much of a victory, but it was a victory. She'd take what she could get.


	3. Three

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The team arrives in Detroit. Morgan is suspish. Reid and Jackson make a bet. Reid makes a possible discovery about the UNSUB.

**Detroit, MI**

Morgan was right: it was fuckin' cold in Detroit. Jackson pulled her dark turquoise wool coat around her more tightly and wished she were wearing a hat, like the locals. Maybe a scarf, too. The flight in the cushy FBI jet had been quick, and they had come straight from the airport to the crime scene. Now the BAU team, along with the Detroit PD, stood near the entrance to the alley in a freezing wind and studied the surrounding area before stepping into the scene proper.

"We think he picked her up over there," Mike Jurczak, the lead detective, said, pointing to a well-lit corner just across the street. "It's a common corner for prostitutes, but no one works it regular. He brought her over here, into the alley." He started to walk that way, but Gideon stopped him.

"Not yet. Walk us through it first."

The detective looked puzzled, but he nodded. "He pushed her against the wall, face first, and cut her throat from behind, left to right."

"A clean cut?" Hotch said.

"Yep, no hesitation at all, far as we can tell. We haven't recovered her head, but the coroner is going by the, um. Stump." He cleared his throat. "Deep, too, almost decapitated her with that one slice. This guy knew what he was doing, and he wanted it done quick. It woulda been damn dark in there. This street is pretty deserted at night, but still—he worked fast."

"He must have had a change of clothes with him," Jackson said.

"What makes you say that?" Gideon said.

She gave him an odd look. "He's going to approach a prostitute in a HAZMAT suit? He had to have been dressed normally or she wouldn't have gone with him, but he exited the alley immediately after killing and dismembering her. That's a bloody job. While I doubt he brought a full change, he probably had a new overcoat or at least a shirt; something he could quickly exchange for his bloody clothes."

"He probably had a bag with him, something in which he could carry the parts he took away," Reid said. "He could easily have stashed the bloody clothes in there along with the packages."

Gideon smiled at the detective. "I think we're ready to see the alley now."

"Right this way. We estimate the time of death at around three night before last. We got the packages in the first mail run yesterday. That's when I contacted Agent Jareau." He pointed to a spot along the brick wall marked with arterial blood spray. "He cut her throat there, then she fell here."

Gideon nodded as he studied the spray pattern. "Reid, Morgan, why don't you two step out onto the street. I want to know what kind of sight lines you get from out there. How well did he scout the location before he killed her? Jack, you're with me."

Reid and Morgan, accompanied by Detective Jurczak, left the alleyway, while Hotch, Gideon, and Jackson stayed behind. Hotch watched her with his razor-sharp gaze, and she felt it pricking against her back as she stepped closer to the wall.

"Cut her throat from behind," Gideon said. "That would have avoided the initial blood spray."

"Mhmm," she said. "But it would have been impossible to avoid all the blood from the dismemberment, especially with how quickly he had to work."

"No footprints," Hotch said. "Blood smeared all over the ground, this big pool here where the body lay initially, but he didn't step in it."

"Or he wore shoe coverings that obscured his prints, and then he removed them to avoid tracking blood onto the street." Gideon crouched near the dried puddle of blood and pointed at a particular smear pattern. "Here. Could be a footprint. He slipped in the blood, maybe."

He glanced up at Jackson, brows lifted, and she swallowed around the sudden lump in her throat. Maybe she wasn't as prepared for this as she'd thought. Face pale, she turned toward the wall, standing almost exactly where Lacey Middleton had stood with her killer.

The alley had been a busy place before the murder, and since then it had been a nonstop parade of cops with their varying emotions. It was a lot to sort through, but Lacey's fear hung about the spot like a miasma. Her fear, and his joy.

She shuddered and tried to make sense of the whirlwind. _"Hamlet?"_ she murmured.

"Hey, Gideon, looks like this corner is pretty well shielded from the street," Morgan said as he and Reid rejoined them. "The streetlight doesn't reach back here either, based on the angle…I don't know. Tell him, kid."

Jackson shook her head, breaking the strange spell the location had cast on her, and tried to look like she was just studying the spray pattern. Reid, in the midst of explaining how the height of the streetlamp versus the height of the buildings flanking the alley made it impossible for the light to penetrate to this exact spot, took note of her odd behavior with one corner of his brain.

"Detective, how soon can we see those newspapers?" Jackson said. She caught Reid's eye as she turned her back on the wall, but all she offered was a brief nod of acknowledgment.

"As soon as we're done here. I thought you wanted to see the scene first?"

"Yes," she said. "Thank you."

"He never stabbed her," Morgan said. "He slit her throat, watched her bleed out, and then immediately began the dismemberment." He knelt by the black, dried pool, his well-made face scrunched in a scowl of concentration as he studied the blood patterns and began working out the sequence of events, much as Gideon had been doing.

"Is that significant?" the detective said.

"With sexual sadists, stabbing is a substitute for the sex act," Reid said. "He can't perform sexually, so he stabs his victims instead. The fact that he's preying on prostitutes points to sexual frustration, but the lack of thrusting stab wounds is strange. There doesn't appear to be any sadism involved here; he killed her quickly, and all the mutilation occurred post-mortem."

"In other words, this guy is all over the map," Morgan said.

"And it looks more and more like his motive isn't sexual," Hotch said.

"I thought these guys were all about sex, impotent rage and all that, like the kid said," Jurczak said with a gesture in Reid's direction.

"Many are," Reid said, "but not all. This UNSUB is probably motivated more by a need to dominate his victims than a need for sexual satisfaction."

"Jack, are you done here?" Gideon said.

"Yes. There's nothing else to see."

Reid and Morgan shared a confused glance, but neither commented. Maybe he was giving her time to adjust, as the new kid.

"All right. Reid, Jackson, go back to the station with Detective Jurczak and JJ. Get started on the newspapers, and keep Garcia in the loop. Morgan, Gideon, let's start canvassing. We need to talk to some of the girls around here; they might have seen the UNSUB hanging around before he chose Lacey," Hotch said.

The team split up, and Reid and Jackson joined JJ in one of the large black SUVs reserved for their use.

"Wow," Jackson said, "between that plane and these cars, our carbon footprint must be impressive."

"All in the name of catching the bad guys," JJ said.

"Maybe we should try to catch bad guys in a Prius. Just see how it goes. They're very stealthy."

"We're FBI, Dr. Jackson, not CIA," Reid said. "Stealth usually isn't our main goal."

"Good point. I'll have to get used to the redistribution of priories," she said with a brief grin. "And please, call me Jack. Unless either of you have the same objection Agent Hotchner did."

JJ's lips curved. "It's Hotch's job to be protective of the team."

"And he's very good at his job," said Jackson.

Reid thought it a very masculine nickname for someone so…feminine, but he was smart enough to keep that to himself. Nicknames often used incongruence as humor, so he figured that's how she'd ended up with it.

As she glanced over her shoulder to flash him a smile, he caught a glimpse of freckles across her nose and cheeks. Just a light dusting. They reminded him of Elle, though very little else about her did. She was much shorter, not as thin, and while Elle's beauty had been remote, even intimidating or cold, Jackson's was softer. But still distant, in a way, and cool. She held herself aloof, like Elle always had, but without that spikiness that had made Elle so hard to get close to.

Not that he'd ever criticized her for it. She worked sex crimes, a male-dominated field in which the victims were nearly always women targeted by men. It couldn't have been easy watching her colleagues display some of the same behaviors in milder, less violent forms as the UNSUBs they chased every day.

Reid leaned forward from the backseat, his curiosity about their new addition officially piqued. "Hey, so, are you a medical doctor, or…?"

"What?" Jackson said, blinking. "Oh. No. Like you, I've devoted a lot of energy to getting a few letters after my name," she said.

"Psychology?" he said.

"No."

It had seemed a safe bet. "Sociology?"

"You won't guess," she said.

He frowned. "I bet I can."

"Oh really? Care to make it interesting?"

"She seems pretty confident, Spence. I'd be careful making bets with a spy."

"How about this? If you can answer the question correctly by the time we've solved this case, I'll buy you lunch every day for a week. If not, you'll do the same for me. Deal?" Jackson said with another glance at him over her shoulder.

His frown deepened, light brows drawing together over deep-set hazel eyes shaded brown by the hue of his coat. "You didn't spend large amounts of time dissecting earthworms, did you?"

"No earthworms were harmed during the course of my higher education," she assured him. "And no peeking at my file!"

"Maybe this isn't such a good idea…," he said, jaw working and eyes darting as he considered all the possible outcomes of the proposed bet. At her look, he held up his hands. "Okay, you're on. I'll know by the time this case is over."

"It's a bet," she said with a grin. He didn't, she noticed, offer to seal their bet with a handshake like so many people would have done. It was the second time he had declined to shake hands in a social situation that called for it. Food for thought, she reflected, turning around in her seat again.

They rode in silence for a short time, until Reid said, "You seem really fixated on those newspapers. I admit it'll be helpful to know if his kills are speeding up, but other than that…."

Jackson glanced at his reflection in the rearview mirror. "You're good with patterns, aren't you?" she said.

"Ye-es," he said, giving it the inflection of a question.

"You'll want to look for any common occurrences among those newspapers, no matter how trivial they may seem. He could have chosen plain butcher paper; he picked newspapers for a reason. He included the dates for a reason. And I think he's subtle enough that the dates aren't the _only_ reason. Look carefully; there's a lot of important information on those papers."

"Is that what you did for the CIA? Codes, patterns?"

Her generous mouth curved, but there was little humor in it this time. "No. And we're not making a bet about that."

* * *

Morgan and Hotch walked the cold Detroit streets, chatting with witnesses and waiting for the few surrounding shops to open. The air was bitter, the sidewalks gray, and Morgan felt like he would never be warm again. Something about this case…the sight of those neat, impersonal little packages…that pool of blood in that nasty, forgotten alley. The pretty little blond girl in JJ's picture hadn't deserved such an end. No one did.

He thrust his hands deeper into the pockets of his wool trench coat and gave Hotch a look from the corner of his deep brown eyes. "So…new girl," he said, keeping his voice deceptively casual.

"She has a name, Morgan," Hotch said.

"Right. I guess she's here to replace Elle?"

"If it works out."

Morgan considered, scanning the street with a furrowed brow as his mind worked. "What was going on back at the scene? Why is Gideon so set on having her here? Special Liaison from the CIA? Hotch, that's fucking weird."

Hotch let out a slow breath and turned to face his agent, his dark eyes hooded by even darker brows. "There are things about Dr. Jackson that only Gideon knows. He believes she'll be an excellent addition to the team. I have reservations, which I've discussed with both Gideon and Dr. Jackson." He hesitated. "Some of her file is classified. She was a CIA asset, after all. Though how much classified mischief someone could get up to by the age of twenty-seven is up for debate."

"She's smart," Morgan said after a moment. "Reminds me a bit of the kid. That why Gideon's so hot on her?"

Hotch almost smiled. "I don't think _hot on her_ is an accurate description, but I'm sure it's part of his reasoning."

"I think we're dead-ending here," Morgan said, switching back to the case. "No one was around last night. No one saw a damn thing. It's too early for any of the girls to be out yet."

"Morgan," Hotch said, "you don't have to like her. I'm not sure I like her, yet. You just have to work with her, at least for now. Her methods will probably seem unorthodox, but remember she's coming from a completely different background than any of us."

Morgan raised a skeptical brow so high it almost disappeared beneath the knit cap protecting his smoothly shaved head from the elements. "It sounds like you're taking her side. I thought you had reservations."

He sighed again. "I do. But I made a deal with Gideon, and I'm not going to back out on it. If she does her job and doesn't flake out, she's in. So far I can't complain on that score, can I?"

"No," Morgan said.

"Elle made her choice. Maybe Dr. Jackson is her replacement, maybe not, but that fact remains. Elle's gone, and she's not coming back."

Morgan wrestled with it a few moments longer, the muscle in his jaw twitching. At last he nodded. "Yeah. I guess we'll just see."

"That's all I ask. Now can we focus on the case, please?"

* * *

Detective Jurczak set a brown evidence box on the folding table in front of them and shook his sandy head. "What a damn mess," he said. Then, sighing, "It's all here. They've all been tested for prints, and all the blood's been sampled. We've ID'd six different blood types, but so far we've only gotten hits on a couple."

"Thank you, Detective," JJ said. "We'll let you know if we find anything."

Jackson distributed the sheets of newsprint. Each one had been carefully flattened and placed in protective plastic, eliminating the need to wear gloves. She hated those stupid gloves; they always made her hands sweat. Jackson picked one at random, while Reid chose the most recent.

"What are we looking for?" JJ said, studying her own sheet.

"I don't know," Jackson said. She tucked a strand of short brown hair behind her ear. "Anything that stands out. Anything that might make these papers significant to our UNSUB."

"Guys," Reid said, "I think I just found it."

The two women looked up with matching expressions of disbelief. "That was fast, even for you," JJ said.

"Jack," Reid said, ignoring JJ and easily slipping into the nickname, "at the scene you said something about _Hamlet._ Why?"

"Um…why do you ask?" He had heard that? He and Morgan had only just re-joined them, and he'd been talking about the alley's lighting. He really didn't miss a trick.

"Look," he said, pointing to a prominent ad in the newspaper that had been used to wrap Lacey Middleton's left leg.

_"Hamlet,"_ Jackson said. "Closing night was the night of the murder. Detective," she called, "where is this theatre? Is it near the scene?"

He joined them and stared down at the ad, frowning."Yeah, like three or four blocks over. Do you think this is significant?"

She shook her head. "I don't know yet. Grab a sheet and search it. Now we know what to look for."

It didn't take long. Every paper featured an ad for a theatre production, and each production had its closing night the same date on the newspaper—the date of a murder.

"So he's an actor," Detective Jurczak said.

"Not necessarily," Reid said, his brow creased in concentration as he plotted the theatre locations on a map. "He could be a tech, an usher, a critic, or just an avid theatre-goer."

_"Avid_ would be accurate," Jackson said. "These shows run the gamut from community theatre to Broadway quality touring companies. We have everything from _A Chorus Line_ to _Waiting for Godot_." She wrinkled her nose. "Beckett. If I were going to kill someone after taking in a little Theatre of the Absurd, it'd be myself."

JJ tried to smother a laugh, her dark blue eyes dancing. "Not a fan, I take it?"

Jackson shrugged. "Maybe I'm just not smart enough."

"Now that's a scary thought."

"You weren't a theatre major, were you?" Reid said, barely looking up from his map and list of addresses.

"I'll start picking restaurants."

"I put my money on you," JJ told her.

"Safe bet," she said smugly.

"Look at this," Reid said with a gesture at the map. "All the previous locations have been in the northwestern quadrant of the city, but the most recent site is down here, on the southeast side."

"He was forced to relocate," Jackson said. "That fits the theory. It would explain the escalation."

"His relocation can't be recent, though; he knew where in this part of the city to find a prostitute in an area that wasn't highly trafficked," Reid said.

"He might have visited this part of town before, just not to kill. Like what you said about Gary Ridgway. If he went to shows down here, or he just wanted new territory."

"How long was the run of _Hamlet?"_ JJ said.

"Three weeks," Reid said without consulting the ad.

"Okay, so if he were involved with the production, he had been visiting this part of town for at least nine weeks or so for rehearsals."

"Good point. But if he is an actor—which I doubt, actually, since these ads include national touring companies—why is he suddenly working so far from home? That's a long commute."

"I vote fan," Reid said. "A critic would have already been visiting theaters all over the city. An actor or technician wouldn't be working such a wide range of productions. A theatre fan might stick to venues in his neighborhood, and only venture outside of it if he had been forced to move."

"I agree," Jackson said.

Reid sat back in his chair, clicking his pen and frowning in concentration. "We should call Gideon. I think we're ready for the preliminary profile."

* * *


	4. Four

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The profile begins to take shape. Gideon, Reid, and Jackson meet with a potential suspect. Reid learns a secret.

"Reid, Jack, what've you got for us?" Gideon said as the rest of the team joined them around the table at the Detroit police station.

"We found evidence that we think confirms the relocation theory," Jackson said. She showed them the ads in each newspaper, and Reid pointed out the plots on the map.

"As you can see, all the previous shows—and, we believe, murders—have been on the other side of town. Until Lacey Middleton."

Gideon said nothing. Instead he leaned against the table and rubbed his hands together as he often did in deep thought. He cast a look at Hotch, who wore a furrowed brow and thoughtful expression.

"The only thing that connects these locations to the murders is this one ad in one newspaper that was found at the most recent scene?" Hotch said.

"That—is true," Jackson said. She and Reid shared a glance. "But like we've said before, the UNSUB could have wrapped the body parts in anything. He chose newspapers, and we—that is, I—believe that he chose these particular pages to send us a message. He was flying under the radar before, but now suddenly he mails gift wrapped body parts to the cops? He wants to communicate. The papers matter."

"I agree," Reid said. "Maybe he was tired of toiling in obscurity, or maybe he's hoping to get caught. Either way, these packages were a way of opening lines of communication with the police, and without an actual note written by the UNSUB, the newspapers are the message."

Hotch nodded and tilted his head toward Morgan and Gideon. "Thoughts?"

"We need to figure out what significance these plays have for him," Morgan said. He selected a piece of newsprint and studied the ad. "Various genres, writers, companies—nothing connects these shows to each other. So what connects them to our UNSUB?"

"He's living out a fantasy," Gideon said. "What else is theatre, but fantasy brought to life? The prostitutes are part of it: women who will do anything he wants, completely submissive. His dream girl, every time."

"He treats them to dinner and a show?" JJ said, doubtfully.

"The perfect gentleman," Morgan said. "Until she does something to piss him off."

"Lacey's murder doesn't show that type of rage, though," Jackson said.

"No," Reid said, "that's true, but maybe he prefers to bide his time."

"A dish best served cold," Jackson said, much to Reid's delight.

"Exactly! He has a perfect evening planned, but something goes wrong. She doesn't respond exactly how he pictures in his mind, or she asks for money, reminding him that she's a prostitute. It ignites his anger, but he doesn't act on it. He has to plan."

"Everything has to be just so," Hotch said. "But the date being ruined—that's part of his fantasy. He needs an excuse to kill."

"Lacey's murder is different," Reid said. "His routine got disrupted. He's escalating, and he won't wait so long before he kills again. He deviated from his set pattern once and the world didn't end; he'll be more willing to do it for the next victim."

"Have Detective Jurczak gather his squad," Hotch said. "They need to hear what we've got so far."

Twenty minutes later the team stood before a group of expectant police officers, each of them eager-eyed and ready to act on whatever wisdom the BAU had to impart.

"So." Gideon spread his hands in front of him. "We're looking for a white male in his mid-thirties to mid-forties. He's well-built, physically imposing. Right-handed. Also he's meticulous: always well-dressed, well-groomed, perfectly pressed. He probably shaves his head, and he certainly doesn't wear a beard."

"He has a vehicle large enough to transport these women, a late-model van or SUV. It's as spotless as he is, impeccably maintained inside and out," Morgan said.

"He recently suffered a loss, either of a longterm relationship, a job, or a home. Considering the nature of these murders, a relationship is the least likely of the three. He needs plenty of alone time for these kills, not to mention the stalking and planning that takes place before the actual murders," said Hotch.

"What about the plays?" Jurczak said. "How do they fit in?"

"We believe the UNSUB is using the plays as part of a wish-fulfillment fantasy. Just as the shows themselves are acted out, so too does he act out a scenario with each of his victims. First, the perfect date, where inevitably the victim disappoints him in some way, ruins the fantasy. So then, she has to die," Gideon said.

"He stalks his victims before he kills them so that he can take them when they're alone," Morgan said. "He might have been observed walking the streets in his old neighborhood, or his presence may have been noticed in his new one. Talk to the girls. He might pick up girls fairly often without killing them. It's more than likely they know this guy, and that some of them even like him. He's polite, gentlemanly, even kind."

"I've plotted the location of all the theaters featured in the newspaper ads on this map. Concentrate your canvassing to within this triangle," Reid said.

"Any questions?" Hotch said.

"Our theory is he kills these girls on closing nights, right? That's somehow part of this fantasy of his?" Jurczak said.

"That's a working theory, yes. Agent Jareau is working with our tech at Quantico now to get us a list of all theatrical productions currently running in the Detroit metro area. It's probably going to be a big list, but it might give us some idea of when he'll strike next," Gideon said.

"Can't we narrow them down geographically, like the canvass?" another detective said.

"We can't be one-hundred percent sure that the location of Lacey's murder is his new home base. He killed her in an alley, so obviously he doesn't have a new kill site. He might stick to this area, or he might follow the shows," Jackson said.

"Thank you, everyone," Hotch said. "Let's go catch this guy." The cops scattered, but the team remained, waiting for orders.

"I've got the list from Garcia," JJ said. "It's pretty big."

"Is there any way to narrow it down?" Hotch asked, scanning it with a furrowed brow.

"What Jack said was right, but geographically is still our best bet," Gideon said.

"If our guy is as much of a fan as we figure, then he'd buy his closing night tickets in advance, don't you think?" Morgan said.

Hotch nodded. "Ask Garcia if she can get ticket lists for as many of the murder nights as she can. Have her cross-reference them for overlapping names. Jackson, a moment?"

As they stepped away, Reid moved to the crime board to tack up his map. Morgan closed his phone, ending the conversation with Garcia, and the two men examined the board in silence for a moment.

"Weird at the scene, huh?" Morgan finally said.

"Yep," Reid agreed.

"More to it than anyone's telling us."

"Oh yeah. Hey, do you have any idea what she has her doctorate in?"

"Who, Jackson? No. English Lit, maybe," he said with a grin.

"Any ideas?" Gideon said as he joined them.

"Nothing new," Reid said. "You've read Jackson's file. What's her doctorate?"

He smiled inscrutably. "JJ told me about your bet. That would be cheating, Reid. I will tell you she has two."

"What? Two Ph.D.s?"

Morgan laughed. "Another genius. Looks like you've got some competition, kid!"

"Gideon, Reid," a voice said, and they all turned guiltily to face the mystery doctor in question. She smiled, her clear green eyes brightening. "Garcia found a name for us. Hotch wants us to go talk to him."

"That was fast," Reid said.

"In Garcia's words, _time is meaningless for the Goddess of Information_ ," Jackson said. "Agent Hotchner told her bully for her, but time means a lot to us since _Sunday in the Park with George_ is closing tonight at a theatre five blocks from where Lacey was killed."

"Let's go," Gideon said.

"He actually said _bully for her_?" Reid demanded, trailing behind. "Who even talks like that? I said _indubitably_ once and got teased for a month!"

* * *

"Garcia says Lloyd Henry has been residing at his current address for six months," Reid told them in the car on the way there. "The location fits the geographic profile."

"It just seems too easy," Jackson said.

"He's been killing completely undetected since at least 2001, and suddenly he gives us the information we need to go straight to him in less than two days. It does seem strange," Gideon said. "He might not be our guy."

"Chemistry?" Reid said suddenly.

"What would make you say that?"

He shrugged. "Chemists always complain when things are too easy."

She grinned and met his eyes in the rearview mirror. "I guess you would know. No, not chemistry. Keep trying, Dr. Reid."

His expressive, finely-featured face screwed itself into a scowl.

"I have faith in you, Spencer," Gideon said. "But you should know that the pool is against you three to one now."

"That's all? I would've thought the odds would be higher," Jackson said with a wicked grin.

"I have excellent problem-solving skills," he muttered as he buried his nose in the file again.

"Henry doesn't have a record," Jackson said a few moments later.

"We didn't mention it in the profile, but that fits," Gideon said. "He'd be too careful to get stopped for something stupid like a busted taillight, and I doubt he's ever been arrested before."

"He keeps his temper on a tight leash, even when he's killing," Jackson said.

"That kind of control…is it admirable, or frightening?" Reid mused.

"Depends on how it's channeled. He could be doing something productive with all his pent-up energy. Instead he's using it to stalk and kill innocent women."

"We're here," Gideon said before Reid could reply. He parked in front of a low brick building and waited on the sidewalk for Reid and Jackson to join him.

"Remember what I told you earlier," she said. "Rule number one."

"I would never ask you to compromise your principles, Jack." He knocked on the door, and a few moments later a tall, good-looking man in his early forties answered. Lloyd Henry looked like the type of guy you'd take home to mom: neat, dark hair, smiling blue eyes, carefully chosen clothing.

"Mr. Henry?" Gideon said. "I'm SSA Jason Gideon, and these are my colleagues Dr. Spencer Reid and Dr. Elliot Jackson. We're with the FBI. May we ask you a few questions?"

The man frowned, a tiny crease forming in his smooth forehead. "I'm sorry; may I see some identification, please?"

All three agents produced their credentials, and once he had inspected them to his satisfaction, he nodded and let them in. "How can I help you? What is this about? I've never had the FBI knock on my door before!"

Gideon gave a thin smile. "Mr. Henry, are you aware that there was a murder a few blocks from here two nights ago?"

The crease deepened. "I believe I heard something about that, yes. Terrible thing; it was a young girl, wasn't it? Something about…dismemberment." He shuddered. "Horrible."

Reid wandered off as Gideon spoke to the man, and he noticed a theatre ticket tacked to a bulletin board. " _Sunday in the Park with George_ ," he said. "You're going tonight?"

"Oh yes. I hear Dot is excellent. I wouldn't miss it."

Gideon's brows rose. "Sondheim musicals; not everyone's a fan. Is that one your favorite?"

"No, no, that would be _Gypsy,"_ he said, looking confused. Why would the FBI care about his favorite Sondheim musical?

"I like _Sweeney Todd_ ," Jackson said.

"Your favorite Sondheim musical is about a serial killer?" Reid said.

She shrugged. "I like the music. And, I mean—he makes some good points about London. And men who abuse their power."

Gideon blinked, then turned back to Henry, steering the conversation to more relevant territory. Reid wandered toward Jackson and leaned close. "Music?" he muttered.

"Keep at it, boy genius. You'll get there eventually," she said softly.

He shook his head and wandered away again.

The place was spotless, not a speck of dust or wayward fingerprint anywhere. Jackson reached to straighten a picture frame, but Henry's voice cut through Gideon's questions to stop her.

"No, please, don't touch that!" he said as he hurried to her side. He tapped the frame askew again and offered her a flustered smile. "Apologies. It's supposed to be slightly crooked. It's a Man Ray. The off-kilter viewpoint heightens the viewer's sense of discomfiture and surreality."

"Of course," she said. "My mistake."

"Thank you for your time, Mr. Henry," Gideon said. "We're just checking with everyone in the vicinity, making sure they didn't see anything suspicious the other night."

"I'm sorry I couldn't be of more help. I hope you catch him."

"So do we, sir," Reid said. "Just one more thing…did you happen to catch the recent run of _Hamlet_ nearby?"

He looked a little startled, then abruptly dismissive. "Shakespeare's tragedies are a bit preachy for my taste. I prefer the comedies."

"Okay," Gideon said. "Sorry to bother you." He offered his hand. Henry shook it quickly, and then did the same with Jackson.

"I like your boots," he told her, holding her hand a little longer than was strictly necessary as he examined her footwear.

Jackson smiled. "Thanks. They're new." She managed to extricate her hand, Reid offered a small, slightly awkward wave, and the agents departed.

"Are you all right?" Gideon said. He opened the back door for her but didn't offer to help her into the car. His palm hovered at her back, not quite touching her.

"Fine. I'm fine. Let's go." She climbed in and he shut the door after her.

Reid wasn't oblivious to the tension, but he had other things on his mind. "Man Ray was an American surrealist-dada painter and photographer. I hadn't seen that photograph before."

"Me neither," Jackson said, grateful for the distraction. "But then I'm not really a Man Ray fan, so I've never sought him out. It was…disturbing. As his art is often meant to be. The way the woman held the Venus torso against her body made it look like it was her torso, and her throat had been slit. Her head severed."

"Her arm as well. I had to look at it again to realize what was happening."

Gideon had grown impatient with what he saw as a mostly pointless sidetrack. "Jack," he said, "you shook his hand. You touched him. What did you see?"

She frowned, fidgeting with the sash of her coat. So much for distractions. "He was casting us."

"Casting us?" Gideon said.

"Yes. _My Fair Lady_. You were Henry Higgins, of course, and I was Eliza Doolittle. He thought Reid would be perfect as Freddy."

"Um," Reid said, but Gideon wagged his hand in the air to hush him.

"You're kidding," Gideon said to Jackson.

"No. But I think it was just a cover. He was trying desperately not to think of something."

"The murders?"

"Yes, but more specifically…Lacey. I think he knew her. There was guilt there, but…" She shook her head.

"What?" he demanded.

"I sensed nothing predatory in him, Gideon." She took a long breath and let it out slowly. "I didn't read him. I told you I wouldn't. Everything I saw was right on the surface. He held my hand so long I could've gotten his life story."

"He did hold onto your hand much longer than Gideon's," Reid said, though he sounded a little putout at not understanding a word of their conversation. "He seemed to be appraising you."

"Mm. There was a lot going on in his head. You," she said, indicating Gideon with a tilt of her chin, "were, he thought, sexy in an older, intense sort of way. Perfect for Higgins. He thought you," she said with a nod at Reid, "were young, a little skinny, but cute. A believable Freddy."

"And you?" Gideon said with a trace of amusement.

She shrugged. "He liked my boots. He's got good taste; they are nice boots." As both men glanced at her in the rearview mirror, she couldn't repress a smile. "Okay, I guess maybe he was right about you guys, too." Her smile faded as quickly as it had come, and her eyes drifted to the window, though her gaze wasn't focused on the sites streaming past. "I saw some real creeps at the Agency, but if this guy can chop a girl into pieces one night and casually cast the all-Bureau production of _My Fair Lady_ the next as though it never happened…" She shuddered.

"This is a whole new world, kiddo," Gideon said gently.

"Yes," she agreed in a soft little voice. Silence fell in the large car, until finally Reid couldn't take it anymore.

"Could one of you please tell me what the hell is going on here?!" he said.

Gideon met her eyes in the mirror, raising his eyebrows eloquently. _Yours to tell_ , his look said.

Another deep inhale and long, slow exhale. "I'm a mind reader, Spencer," she said. "That's my big secret. I read minds. But I don't predict the future. It's not Dionne Warwick's psychic hotline up in here." She paused. "Suddenly my majors don't seem as important anymore, huh?"

He blinked. Went still. Blinked again. "That's not possible. The human brain—"

"Is an incredibly mysterious and powerful organ," Gideon said. "We've barely begun to understand it. We don't know what causes depression, psychosis, autism…or telepathy. Look at the things your brain is capable of, things that many people would say are impossible. It's true, Reid."

"But—how—you— _Hamlet_ —?" he stammered. His stunned mind was racing, analyzing, processing, recalling everything he had ever read, learned, or heard about psychics. Most of it was bunk, quack science that meant nothing, and he had a hard time accepting that the man he respected most in the world was calmly and rationally telling him that Elliot Jackson was a mind reader.

"Ah. Well." She grimaced. "Sometimes I can read places, too. Not objects. But sometimes people leave a stamp on a place, and I can pick up small snatches of information. It fascinated the Agency, and they were trying to develop that ability further. Very useful, you understand."

"I—I'm not sure I understand anything anymore, if this's true," he said. Except, of course, he was the off-the-charts genius son of a schizophrenic mother. He profiled the dregs of humanity for a living. If anyone understood how unfathomable the human brain could be, surely it was Dr. Spencer Reid, boy genius.

That didn't make it any easier to believe. "Does Hotch know about this? Morgan?"

"Hotch and Gideon," she said. "The former's reaction was similar to yours. Eventually we'll have to tell the others, but for now I'd rather keep it quiet. Until I'm more settled in."

"Right." He slumped back against the seat, but then sat up again. "You said—you touched him. That's how you could see what was in his head. That's why you don't shake hands."

"Touching facilitates the process, but it's not strictly necessary. I keep myself well blocked most of the time, to make sure I don't receive any unwanted information. And to respect the privacy of those around me."

He took a moment to absorb that and some of the tension drained from his wiry frame. "So you don't just—hear—everything people think? All the time?"

"Like a radio set on seek, tuning to station after station? No. It used to be like that, when I was younger and couldn't control it. But I learned."

"Because of the CIA?"

She shifted in her seat. "Yes. I can't say much about that, though." She leaned forward and touched the armrest, just near his elbow. Her fingers didn't actually meet his skin. "Your mind is safe around me, Spencer," she said, "and if you like, I can teach you how to shield it. To protect yourself."

"Protect myself? From you?"

Her brow crinkled. "No. Of course not. But—do you really think I'm the only one?"

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The most eagle-eyed of you will spot that nearly all the musicals named in this chapter once starred Mandy Patinkin.


	5. Five

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Sex workers love some Spencer Reid. The new kid wonders about the profile. A suspect is questioned.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hi, friends! I've seen your kudos; thanks so much!! If you'd like to drop a few words in the comments box I'd love to see it. :)

The team assembled on the cold street near the crime scene, and Gideon divided them into pairs. Hotch and Morgan went one direction, JJ and Gideon another, and Jackson and Reid yet another. Each pair was armed with pictures of Lloyd Henry and Lacey Middleton.

Jackson and Reid flashed their pictures to several groups loitering on the street despite the bitter, chill wind, but they came up empty. They worked in circles moving around the theatre and the crime scene, and as the afternoon wore on, the streets got busier.

It was a bit awkward between them, and Jackson could sense without reading him that Reid was uncomfortable around her since the reveal earlier. She decided to clear the air. "I can control it, you know," she told him as they walked away from yet another group of witnesses who had witnessed nothing.

He picked up the thread of their earlier conversation immediately, but he still refused to look at her. "I…um. That's what you said." He kept his head down, examining the sidewalk as though the dirty concrete might reveal the answers to Lacey's murder.

"What I mean is I'm not reading you now. I don't just listen in. I wouldn't." She frowned, brushed her hair out of her face as the wind caught it. "I mean your thoughts are safe around me. Private. I know I told you that, but I need to make sure you understand."

He took a deep breath and let it out slowly. He finally looked up, though still not at her. "It's really true, isn't it?" He scanned the milling people, his eyes working and his face scrunched in concentration as he studiously avoided her gaze.

"I…yes, it's really true. Is your mind blown?"

"A little," he said, burrowing his hands deeper into his coat pockets. They had paused on the sidewalk, two still figures in the middle of a busy street. He turned to her at last and gave her a long, searching look from his intense, deep-set hazel eyes. "It's ironic, really," he mused after a moment.

"I'm sorry?"

He shook his head and offered a wan smile. "We all just want someone to understand us, to get us, and you do it effortlessly. It's what you're made to do. You're the person everyone dreams of meeting. Yet when people find that out about you, they're scared to death."

Her mouth fell open a bit in surprise, but she recovered quickly, her full lips curving slightly. "Be careful what you wish for, I guess," she said, trying to play off how deeply his words had affected her.

"I guess so," he said.

They stood another few moments until someone bumped against her, knocking her off balance and into him. He reached out to catch her, and she got an accidental glimpse into his mind that made her blush.

As Reid grabbed her arm to keep her from falling, he saw her cheeks redden. He let go abruptly, his own face suddenly going hot. "Um. I like the way your hair smells?" He offered it like a question. A lame, lame question.

Jackson smiled. Sometimes she really hated her stupid ability. "Thanks. I kinda like it, too. Hey, have we talked to them?" she said and gestured to a group of women gathered nearby.

Grateful for her tact, he shook his head. "No, I don't think so. Let's go."

As they approached, the women all turned toward them, some looking at Jackson with hostility, others regarding Reid with interest. "Hey, cutie," one said to him, "first one's free!"

"Ladies, a moment of your time?" Jackson said.

"He can have a moment of my time!" another one said while they all tittered.

Reid sighed and thrust his hands back into his pockets, and Jackson gave him a sidelong glance.

"As fascinating as my colleague is, let's focus a minute. I was wondering if you ladies have seen this man around here lately?" She held up a picture of Lloyd Henry, and a few of the girls nodded.

"Yeah, that Lloyd," one of the girls said. "He come around some, though not so much in the last few days."

"Have you seen him with this girl at all?" Reid said, showing them Lacey's picture.

"Yeah," another girl said. "He was one of Lacey's regulars. He would go with me some before he met her. I was real disappointed when he decided to go with Lacey only."

"Why's that?" Reid said.

"He was sweet," she said. "Just straight sex, no rough stuff or anything. Sometimes he, ya know, had trouble? Some guys—most guys—get mean when that happens, but not him."

"What would he do?" Jackson said.

The girl shrugged. "He would cry. He said it was his fault, not mine."

"Didn't he buy Lacey that coat?" another girl said.

"Coat?" Reid said. They hadn't found any of Lacey's clothes, of course, so this was of particular interest.

"Yeah," the talkative girl said. "It was real nice. I don't mean fancy or like expensive, just nice. Warm. She said he gave it to her because he was worried she'd be cold. Can you believe that? From a john? Most a john ever gave me was a cheap gold locket. What good is that shit?"

Jackson nodded in commiseration. "Men," she said. "What's your name?"

"Tanya. Don't tell the cops, okay?"

"I wouldn't. Thank you, Tanya, ladies," Jackson said. "You've all been very helpful."

"Try to stay warm," Reid said as they turned to go.

"You could keep me warm, baby!" the first girl called after them as they walked away.

Jackson's laughter burst out as soon as they were clear of the group. "What was that?!" she said.

He shrugged, mouth quirking. "Apparently I'm _fascinating."_

She cut her eyes at him and fought a grin. "That's the word on the street, anyway."

"Jack, Reid, anything?" Gideon said as they approached the rest of the team.

"Actually, yes." Reid filled them in on what they had learned, and he looked to Jackson for confirmation, but she wasn't paying attention. Her gaze was riveted on the surrounding crowd, her eyes searching the faces around them, scanning the loiterers and general riffraff.

"Henry fits the profile," Hotch was saying, "and he knew the victim. He could easily be our UNSUB."

"Did Garcia get anywhere on the _Hamlet_ thing?" Reid said.

Morgan shook his head. "The theatre doesn't use computers for their ticketing system, and they've already thrown away everything from the other night. Garcia was personally offended, I think. We have no way of knowing if Henry was there or not."

"What if our profile is wrong?" Jackson suddenly said.

"What?" Hotch said.

She still stared out at the crowd, but her brow was creased in concentration and her words came slowly, as though she were considering each one carefully before saying it. "What if we're wrong? What if…" She trailed off, worrying the inside of her bottom lip with her teeth.

"Go on, Jack," Gideon said quietly.

She sighed in frustration and turned at last to face them. "He gave her a coat. Not some useless piece of crap or some expensive statement gift, but a warm, practical coat. I think he actually cared about her. A man who cares doesn't slit a girl's throat, chop her into pieces, and then leave those pieces wrapped up like so many cuts of meat."

"Psychopaths can put on an excellent pretense of caring," Gideon said. "It's part of how they're able to hide for so long."

"I know," she said. "I also know that I'm new here, and I don't have the profiling experience the rest of you have, but my gut tells me we're missing something."

"We're a team, Dr. Jackson. That means we all contribute, and every opinion is considered," Hotch said. "That being said…it's possible you're right. The pieces of this case don't seem to fit the picture we're painting."

"Sir?"

"Your instincts are sound, Jackson. Let's get Lloyd Henry in the box and see what he has to say."

* * *

"I don't understand," Lloyd Henry said as the team observed him through the window in the Detroit PD's homicide unit. "Why am I here? I talked to the FBI this afternoon; I told them I didn't know anything about the girl's murder. I'm going to miss curtain!"

Hotch frowned and crossed his arms over his chest. "He seems more concerned about missing his play than anything else."

"The closing nights are his routine," Reid said. "In a world out of control, he feels safe at the plays. He can lose himself in the fantasy. We're disrupting him."

"We might be disrupting his murder routine, too," Morgan said.

"The murder we saw was committed by someone with a lot of rage," Gideon said. "Being kept from it would only increase his fury. Let's leave him for a while and see what happens."

As an hour, then two, passed, Henry became more agitated, checking his watch, adjusting his tie, rubbing his brow. Curtain came and went, and he looked like he wanted to weep.

"I'm not seeing rage here," Morgan said. "He looks like someone kicked his puppy. Some anger would be an appropriate response. He's been sitting in that room for almost three hours. No one's come in. No one's updated him. But he hasn't said a word."

"Passivity? Or the type of patience we've profiled the UNSUB to have?" Gideon said. He rubbed his hands as he considered. "Okay. Let's go talk to him. Hotch, Jack, you're with me. Reid, Morgan, stay in here. Keep an eye on his body language. Let me know if you see anything telling that we miss."

Lloyd Henry lifted his head to fix them with tired eyes as the three agents filed into the room. Gideon and Jackson sat at the table across from him, while Hotch hovered behind him, arms crossed, expression stern. Henry caught his eye in the mirror and blanched.

"Mr. Henry," Gideon said with a reassuring smile, "I'm sorry for the inconvenience. We needed to ask you a few more questions."

"Doesn't matter now," he said. "I've already missed most of act one."

"I know. Again, I'm sorry." He opened a file and placed the mug shot of Lacey Middleton on the table between them. Henry wasn't able to suppress a shiver at the sight of the young, hopeless face.

"This is Lacey Middleton, the most recent victim. You told us you didn't know her, Mr. Henry," Jackson said softly, "but we know that's not the entire truth. We'd like it if you could clarify the nature of your relationship with Lacey."

He wiped his palms on his trousers and rubbed the back of one hand across his mouth. "She's a prostitute," he said at last. "I mean, she was. I didn't want…I have a son. If my ex-wife found out…I can't lose visitation. I love my son."

Gideon spread a series of photos on the table, and as each one landed, Henry flinched. He gaze skittered around the small room as he avoided looking at them.

"Do you recognize any of these, Mr. Henry?" Gideon said.

"They're—they're just parts! What could I possibly recognize?"

"This one has an ankle tattoo," Jackson said. "A clover. Have you seen it before?" She slid the photo closer. He tried to scoot his chair back, but he ran into an implacable Hotch.

"The thing is, Mr. Henry," he said, "we know that all the victims were prostitutes. We also know that you like working girls, including Lacey Middleton."

"That's just—I'm not the only man in Detroit who visits prostitutes! They wouldn't be able to stay in business if I were," he said with a sour chuckle.

"That's true," Jackson said. Gideon slid three more photos across the table. "Katherine Marino, Jane Dorsey, and Elizabeth Jennings. We haven't been able to identify the owner of that tattoo. But you know her name, don't you?" she said.

"What makes you think I—?" He cleared his throat and pressed his hands against the table's metal surface. "Do I need a lawyer?"

"Why?" Gideon said. "We're not interested in arresting you for solicitation."

"You seem to think I had something to do with these horrible crimes."

"Did you?" Jackson said, her tone mild.

"No! Of course not!"

"But you did know all four of these women," Hotch said. It was a gamble: besides the tenuous (circumstantial) connection of the ads and his ticket stubs, they had nothing to directly connect Lloyd Henry to the earlier victims.

"I…" His eyes darted around the room again, but there was no relief to be had. "Yes. Yes, I knew them. But I swear I didn't hurt them! I wouldn't do that. I cared for them! I know that sounds ridiculous, but I did."

Hotch poured a glass of water and set it on the table in front of him. "Why don't you tell us about these women, Mr. Henry. We're listening."


	6. Six

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The team makes some adjustments to the profile. Reid and Jackson argue about Star Trek.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thanks so much for the kudos! Would anyone care to comment? For I am delicate and crave validation.

"He claims he had nothing to do with the murders. He was a frequent client of each of these women, but then, one by one, they all disappeared. He thought they'd moved away or gone straight," Gideon said.

"You believe him?" Morgan said.

Gideon spread his hands in a shrug. "He seemed genuine, but we've already profiled this UNSUB as being clever and manipulative. He convinces these women he's harmless; why wouldn't he try to pull the same trick with us?"

Jackson sat with her fingers pressed to her forehead, her other arm crossed over her middle. Now she lifted her chin and fixed tired eyes on the crime board. "Maybe it's not a trick. Maybe he really isn't our UNSUB."

"He said he started seeing prostitutes because his wife wanted to have a baby, but he struggled with impotence. Also she hates the theatre," Hotch said. "He paid these women to flatter him. To listen to him. To make him feel valued in a way his wife didn't."

JJ snorted. "Because of course that was her job: to pacify her husband's bruised ego."

Jackson's lips curled in agreement. "It was in his mind, anyway." She paused. Something about him just didn't fit, but she couldn't put her finger on what, exactly. "He's a well-built, good-looking guy, but he comes across…"

"Pathetic?" Reid said.

"Wimpy?" said Morgan.

"Weak," Jackson said. "But…" She trailed off with a grimace. The exact discordance still eluded her.

"His posture is wrong," Reid said.

She lifted her eyes to meet his, and he hurried to his feet. "He's tall. Tall men who lack confidence, as Henry seems to do, usually slump." He demonstrated, shuffling across the room with sloped shoulders and bowed head. "But Henry doesn't. He holds himself erect, head up, unafraid to meet your eye."

"He had no problem making eye contact back at his apartment, but in the room he was looking anywhere but at our faces," Gideon said.

"The way he held onto Jack's hand at the end of the earlier interview shows an assertiveness that was completely absent in the interrogation room," Reid said.

"Can you imagine that guy correcting me about the Man Ray?" Jackson said. "He looked like he wouldn't say boo if I came through his house with a fuckin' bulldozer."

"It was an act," Hotch said. "Either earlier today at his apartment, or tonight in the interview room."

"Tonight," Morgan said. "Looking at his apartment, the way he dresses—he's a man who's in control at all times. That interview was no different."

"Or not," Jackson said with a brief shrug. "Maybe the confident guy thing is just a façade. We know he's impotent; Tanya told me as much today, and he confirmed it in the interview. The guy we talked to this afternoon didn't seem like a man who would need to create fantasies with prostitutes. The one we interviewed tonight, did."

"I agree," Reid said. "He's a man who wants everyone to think he's in control. That's what OCD is: an illusion of control in a chaotic world. One little nudge and it all came crumbling down. That's what we saw in the interview."

"Hmm," Gideon said.

"I can buy that," Morgan said, "but these murders show self-assurance. The killer knew what he was doing, and he's proud of his work. There's no shame, no passivity—and he's tired of hiding."

"A sort of Jekyll/Hyde situation," Jackson said.

"Or two UNSUBs."

JJ said it casually, almost like a joke, but five pairs of eyes fixed her in place. "What? It tracks. Jekyll and Hyde were two sides of the same person, but truly disparate identities within the same person like that are extremely rare, aren't they? And the differences you're describing in Henry's demeanor seem more superficial. A façade, like Jack said. The man Morgan just described…that's not a façade. That's who he really is."

After a moment Hotch's mouth quirked in admiration. "You really should reconsider those profiling classes, JJ."

"Sounds like she doesn't need them," Jackson said.

Gideon closed in on the crime board until his nose nearly touched the display of photographs and notes. "That's what we've been missing. That's the hole in the profile. Two UNSUBs. The first one—Lloyd Henry—selects the victims. Courts them, if you will. Decides if they're suitable."

"The second one does the hunting," Reid said. "They're prostitutes, so of course he'd have no problem luring them to a location of his choosing. He kills them, dismembers them—"

"And wraps them up like presents for his partner," Morgan said. "Like some sort of butcher."

"Or poacher," Reid said.

"Ew," JJ said.

"Seconded," said Jackson.

"The vote carries," Reid said. "Now the question is which one's the dominant personality?"

"Does that matter at this point?" Jackson clicked her pen a few times and tapped it against her notebook. "It seems more important to figure out who the partner is than who's in charge. The theatre geek or the poacher with a temper."

"Knowing the dominant personality will tell us which one deviated from the plan," Gideon said. "Was it Henry, because his partner chose to kill in an alley instead of exercising his usual caution? Or was it the partner, because Henry relocated and the partner lost access to his primary kill site?"

"The first seems more likely," Reid said. "Rather than directly confronting his partner, Henry passively aggressively exposes his crimes by mailing the packages to the cops."

"I don't know," Jackson said. "Henry is the one we've found. We don't even have a name for the partner."

"That could be to throw us off," Reid said. "He's lamp shading himself as a suspect."

She snorted. "We wouldn't know a lamp existed for him to shade if the UNSUB hadn't pointed it out to us in the first place."

"True, but we can't make any assumptions. That's how we missed the possibility of two UNSUBs in the first place," Hotch said. He let out a jagged sigh and scrubbed his face with one hand. "We're all hungry and exhausted. Let's brief Detective Jurczak and head back to the hotel. Morgan, get on the phone to Garcia and let her know where we are, but tell her to call it a night, too. It's an hour later in DC."

"Sounds like a plan, boss," Morgan said. He already had the phone off his hip and halfway to his ear.

"Anyone up for sushi?" JJ said.

"As long as I can use a fork," said Reid with a grimace.

"Use your fingers," Jackson said as she shrugged into her coat. "It's a perfectly acceptable way of eating sushi in Japan."

"Do you think there's anywhere to get reputable sushi at almost midnight in Detroit?" Hotch said.

They shared a series of doubtful glances.

"Tacos?" JJ said.

"I could go for a taco."

"Tacos sound great."

"Garcia says mark her down as a yes for tacos!"

* * *

"It's not that I think you're wrong," Reid said. He held the door for her and she slipped past him, careful to make sure they didn't touch.

"You just don't agree," Jackson said.

"Movie Picard is much more like Kirk than show Picard. I still think of the two, Riker and Picard would win."

"Kirk would cheat his ass off before he let William T. Riker beat him at anything, much less a three-legged race, Spock or no Spock."

"Not _just_ a three-legged race!" Reid said. "A three-legged race with the fate of the universe at stake."

Morgan happened to walk by in time to catch the last bit and he froze in his tracks. Slowly pivoted toward the pair and blinked at them. "What the goddamn ever-loving _hell_ are you two talking about?"

"We saw a segment on the morning news that had us wondering who would win in a three-legged race: Picard and Riker, or Kirk and Spock," Reid said as though it were the most natural thing in the world.

"I am not going to ask how a morning news segment got you there," Morgan said. "Come on, nerds. Garcia's an hour ahead of us, and she's been hard at work looking for someone in Henry's life who could be his kill partner."

"Kirk and Spock," Jackson muttered as they fell in behind him.

"Picard and Riker. Height advantage."

"All hail the Queen of Information! Grovel before her greatness and might!" Penelope Garcia said in a sing-song voice over the speakerphone.

Jurczak cut Hotch a look, but he just lifted a brow in resigned acknowledgement.

"Give us what you got, baby girl," Morgan said with a broad grin.

"Well! When our fearless leader called me bright and early to fill me in on the updated profile, I got to digging. I figured we should look for anyone in Lloyd

Henry's past who might be down for a little slice and dice duo action.

"He's never been in the military or served time in prison, so that narrowed things down considerably. He was an only child, his father died when he was just a kid, and his mother raised him solo. No real male authority figures that I could find, not even a coach or school guidance counselor."

"So what did you find, Garcia?" Gideon said.

"I'm so glad you asked, sir! While Lloyd is an only child, his former wife is not. She has a brother, and he was Lloyd's best man in their wedding. Joshua Brady, forty-three, who served six months just before the Henrys were married for…guess what!"

"Aggravated assault," Reid said.

"A big _no_ to the boy genius in the front row. Better! Deer poaching out of season."

"Penelope Garcia," Morgan said, "you tell dirty, dirty lies."

"I caaan," she said, "but the second _dirty_ costs extra. Strangely, that's the only charge that ever stuck. He's been arrested on assault charges a couple of times, once with a deadly weapon, but the charges were always dismissed."

"Deer poaching," Jackson said, drumming her nails against the tabletop. "Do you have a current address?"

"Do I ever!" She rattled off a Detroit address and a current phone number before signing off with the team's thanks.

"A poacher with a temper," Morgan said.

"But somehow clever enough, or slippery enough, that they couldn't make any other charges stick," Gideon said.

JJ passed around the information Garcia had sent, and they all sat a moment poring through it.

"Hey, look at this," Jurczak said. "Scumbag was arrested in '01 for assault. The girl was a pro, and he threatened her with a knife when she refused to go back to his place."

"When in '01?" Reid said. "Is there a picture of her?"

Jurczak slid the file his way and pointed. "Vic's name is listed. I can see if we have a mugshot."

"Garcia can probably get it faster," Morgan said. He hit the button on his phone, and after a brief exchange snapped it closed again. "Picture should be coming through in a sec."

"He assaulted her two days before the first murder. Coincidence?" Reid said.

"What happened to the case?" Gideon said. "Why were the charges dropped?"

"It says—it says she didn't show up to testify. She disappeared. Police put it down to her transient lifestyle," Reid said.

"Here it comes,"Jackson said. "Angela Kline." The picture filled in, along with a description. "Twenty-five years old, five feet four inches tall, brown hair, blue eyes, one hundred ten pounds."

"Slip of a thing," Jurczak said.

Her mouth made a brief moue of acknowledgement. "Distinguishing characteristics include an appendectomy scar and…oh shit."

"What oh shit?" Morgan said. He leaned toward the screen and she tilted it his direction. "Oh shit," he echoed. "Distinguishing characteristics include an appendectomy scar and a green four-leaf clover tattoo on her right ankle. Guys. We just found our first victim."

* * *

JJ tacked Angela's picture to the crime board, along with a photo of her tattoo and the piece of newsprint that had accompanied her severed leg. Jackson winced and turned away.

"They had him," she said to Gideon, her voice low so the cops wouldn't overhear. "They had him and they let him go."

"They couldn't hold him, Jack. You know that. And they had no way of knowing what kind of monster they were letting loose."

"How hard did they work it? A john threatens a sex worker? I'm surprised a DA even considered taking it to trial."

"Hey. Jack, look at me."

She did, reluctantly. His expression was stern, his dark eyes bright.

"That's why we're here," he said. "We'll make sure these women get the justice they deserve. We'll speak for them, even if no one else will."

After a moment she nodded, just once. "Okay," she said.

"Okay?"

"Yeah, Jason. Okay." He turned to rejoin the others, but her voice stopped him. "Thank you," she said.

"What for? This team's only as strong as our weakest member. That's not you, and I won't let it be."

She lagged behind as they reassembled, and she caught Garcia mid-stream.

"While she wasn't exactly on the grid before, after March of 2001, there's nothing about our poor Ms. Kline anywhere. No arrests, no job, no credit card, nada. It's like she vanished. Or was brutally murdered by a knife-wielding madman."

"Brady was arrested on March 4, 2001, and the first victim was killed on March 6, according to the newspaper wrapped around the leg," Hotch said.

"Hey, Garcia?" said Reid. "Do you have a newer address for Brady? The one you gave us is in the old hunting ground. He's probably moved by now."

"Ahhh…that's a negative, my dear Dr. Reid. And his name is still on the lease at the address I gave you, so if he's moved, it's not official."

"We need to get there," Gideon said. "If he sent the packages, he probably cleaned up before he did it. If Henry sent them, then we might have a chance of catching him with his pants down. Either way, we're wasting time here."

"I can have a warrant in an hour," Jurczak said.

"Good. Do it. How far is the apartment?"

"Twenty minute drive?" Reid said with a shrug.

"Call on the way," Gideon told Jurczak. "Let's go."


	7. Seven

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The suspect's apartment seems empty. Windows are counted. Secrets are discovered. Reid gives Jackson some career advice.

Reid was right, of course: Brady's place was cleaned out. The team, first through the door, holstered their weapons in frustration as the sweep of the small space proved clean. "He followed Henry," Reid said. Somehow he managed to keep the _I told you so_ out of his voice.

"There's no way he killed those women here," Morgan said. "The walls are thin; anyone would have heard."

Gideon turned to Jackson with a questioning expression.

She slowly shook her head. "No. I don't think so." She rubbed the back of her neck warily and closed her eyes a moment. "I'm sorry. I'm tired; it's very muddled." Her eyes opened. "Crowded."

He shrugged and gave a little smile. "It's okay. We'll just do it the old fashioned way."

Morgan watched this exchange with an incredulous expression, but when neither Hotch nor Reid seemed perturbed, he merely snorted in disgust, shook his head, and walked away.

"Dr. Jackson, come with me. Let's go do a quick canvass of the neighbors," Hotch said.

She nodded. If she let it, his continued formality would get on her nerves. So she tried not to let it. "Lead on, Agent Hotchner," she replied. If he noticed the irony in her tone, nothing in his face gave it away.

As they walked the hall, knocking on door after door to no avail, Hotch eyed her. "I take it Reid knows?" he finally said.

"Yes. After we interviewed Henry the first time. I haven't said anything to anyone else."

They spoke to a woman who vaguely remembered the "young man from down the hall." She could offer little detail, and she never remembered him bringing home any girlfriends. The rest of the neighbors either knew nothing or weren't home.

"We would have made the connection about the theatre ads and the dates. Reid's very good at that sort of thing," Hotch told her as he opened the door to the building's stairs and gestured her in.

"I know," she said as they climbed. "I know that my ability isn't a substitute for good old-fashioned police work. And, as you said, mind-reading isn't admissible in court."

They had left the stairwell and started down the fifth floor hallway before he spoke again. "Having said that, you're better at this than I expected. I apologize if I judged you too harshly before. You're working well with the team, and your theories so far have been strong." His voice was even, almost expressionless, but Jackson understood that was just his way.

She stopped and turned to him, her face solemn. "I truly hope I can prove Agent Gideon's faith in me to be well-placed, Agent Hotchner. I…" A quick glance away, then back. "It's harder than I was expecting. Different. But I still feel that I can do good work here."

He studied her with those penetrating dark eyes until she struggled not to squirm. "Hotch," he said at last.

She raised a brow.

"My team calls me Hotch," he told her. The barest hint of a smile lifted a corner of his mouth.

Her face transformed as she smiled back. "Hotch. Well now I feel much bet—" She broke off abruptly, and as suddenly as the smile had come it was gone, replaced by a deep, thoughtful frown. "Wait a minute," she muttered. "That's not right, something's not right."

"Jackson?" She ignored him and hurried back the way they'd come without another word. And he had _just_ praised her for working well with the team. "Jackson, what's going on?"

She took the stairs more quickly than he would have thought possible for someone so short, in heels. "There's something wrong with the doors," she told him over her shoulder. "I'm not sure…" Her next words were lost as she disappeared into the fourth floor hallway.

Jackson's sudden appearance in the small apartment startled everyone, especially when combined with her babbling. "I think there's an extra room here," she said. "The doors don't add up. There are too many upstairs. Just come with me, okay? We can look at the windows." She grabbed Reid's arm, gave it an insistent tug, and he followed her, his face scrunched in confusion.

"Look," she explained more carefully as they descended to the first floor. "Hotch and I have canvassed every floor, and there were fifteen doors. On Brady's hall and the one above there are sixteen."

"There could just be a two bedroom on the fourth and fifth floors and not on the others," Reid said.

"Yes, hence the windows." They stopped on the sidewalk across from the building and she gestured upwards. "Count them; you're faster than me. Are they the same on every floor?"

A quick glance had him frowning. He counted again, more carefully. "I don't understand. How did nobody notice a random bricked-up window?"

She pointed up and over, and his eyes followed her finger until they were both looking at the square of bricks. "It's not a very good neighborhood," she said. "Windows get broken. Better it's replaced with brick than plywood, I suppose?"

The rest of the team had joined them by this time. "Son of a bitch," Morgan said.

"Get on the horn to Garcia. I want blueprints to this building. I want into that room as quickly as we can, and I want to do as little damage as possible getting in," Gideon said.

Morgan was already on it. "Hey, baby girl, we need your expertise. You're on speaker."

"Speak and be enlightened, O handsome one."

"Jackson noticed something weird about this building. The top two floors have a different number of apartment doors than the lower three. We see a bricked up window next to Brady's place. Any way you can get access to some building blueprints?"

"Ask me something hard!" she said. The sound of rapid typing followed, then, "Ohhh, my intrepid adventurers, new girl is on to something. It looks like the ambitious architects squeezed in an extra apartment on the fourth and fifth floors. Studios. Strange addition, but what do I know about slum lording? Ahh, it looks like the apartments connect, like connecting hotel rooms. I guess tenants have the option of renting both and making a two bedroom. Anyway, the fourth floor studio connects to Brady's abode and it's currently…hm."

"What, Garcia?" Gideon said.

"The lease is owned by an LLC. I'm tracing it now. Wow, whoever did this was par-a-noid! There are like four different shell corps before—oh, there it is. The fifth company's incorporation papers are co-signed by…well, well, well. Lloyd Henry and Joshua Brady."

"You rock my world every day, mama."

"You know it, sweet cheeks. Garcia out!"

"They went to a lot of trouble to hide not only their connection to this apartment, but also their connection to each other," Hotch said.

"First mistake they've made," Reid said. "Sending the packages was a deliberate act, but this…having both their names on a lease, even hidden by shell corporations, was a true slip-up."

"We had no real proof they were even still in contact post-divorce," Jackson said.

"And now we do. Hotch, have Jurczak send some men to pick up Lloyd Henry. We'll need to talk to him again."

"Agents?" A uniform approached them and gestured toward the building. "Demo crew's here, ready to get started."

"Wait," Gideon said. "Tell them to do nothing until we're up there. I want to watch this every step of the way."

Once back upstairs he glowered at the construction crew as they carefully removed a layer of sheetrock that closed off the connecting doors between the two apartments. They took both doors off their hinges and set them aside to be processed, and finally the team had access to Brady's secret apartment.

The space was divided in two. The room they walked into from Brady's apartment was where he had done the killing. It was spotlessly clean, but empty of any weapons.

Gideon rubbed his hands and walked a slow circuit of the room. "He took his tools with him when he cleared out. Soundproofed the walls, sealed up the window. Even put soundproofing on the hall door. That's how he got in here."

"Risky," Morgan said. "Seems like it would've been safer to access it through his apartment. Someone could walk down the hall at the wrong time and see the wrong thing."

"Possibly, but he was careful. Obsessively so," Gideon said. "There's not a neighbor across the hall to peer through their peephole at his comings and goings."

Hotch opened a cabinet. "Twine and regular butcher paper. It looks like he didn't just use newspaper."

Jackson stood in the center of the room, her face pale, the skin tight over her high cheekbones. Reid watched her with concern, remembering what she'd said about certain places absorbing emotion. If the alley had absorbed something from Lacey's murder, then this place must be a rattrap of pain from six other women's suffering.

"Jack," he said gently.

She started and spun toward him, but before she could say anything, Detective Jurczak emerged from the other room. "Agents, you're gonna wanna see this," he said with a come here tilt of his head.

Jackson was the closest, so she was the first one through the door. She froze at what she saw, but only for a second. Reid and Gideon were right on her heels, while Hotch and Morgan continued their examination of the main room.

"Well," Gideon said. "Looks like we found his trophy room."

"Why didn't he take this stuff with him when he cleaned out everything else?" Jackson said.

"Good question. Maybe after Henry sent the packages, he spooked. He hasn't been back here since he planted the Hamlet ad. If he's the one who planted that at all. It might've been Henry himself."

"Or Brady sent the packages and he left all of this because he wanted us to find it, just like he wanted to lead us to Henry before," she said.

Jurczak grunted. "Is he the kinda killer who wants to get caught?"

"Possibly," Reid said. "The move across town shook him. Something's changed in their dynamic because of it, and maybe he's just not having fun anymore."

"Fun?!" Jackson said.

Reid gave a sheepish shrug. "In his mind."

"Mmm."

Sheets of newsprint were tacked to every inch of the small room's walls, like macabre wallpaper. Some were even bloodstained. She shuddered and pressed the fingers of both hands against her closed eyelids.

"Elliot?" Gideon said. "If you need to step out, it's perfectly all right."

"I just need a minute," she told him. She kept her eyes squeezed shut to block out the sight of the bloodstained headlines, and tried to breathe. She would not walk out of this room; it was a matter of pride.

After several tense moments she lifted her head, let her shoulders drop, and took in a breath. She stepped closer to the far wall and squinted in the dim light. "It looks like there's copies of every paper he sent," she said as though nothing had happened. "Even _Hamlet._ But he didn't kill Lacey here."

Reid and Gideon were gracious enough to let it pass, and Jurczak had had a similar reaction when he realized what they were looking at, so he didn't blame her at all.

"No, but collecting these papers are part of his signature," Gideon said. "The kill doesn't give him the satisfaction he needs if he doesn't. So he came back here to leave the paper. That might be when he made the decision to send the packages."

"No large freezer anywhere, or signs of one," Reid said. "It's unlikely he kept the body parts here."

"So either Henry has them, or there's yet another location."

"The latter," Gideon said. "If Henry was used to receiving the packages directly he would have noticed their absence. They keep the bodies in a third location, someplace neutral. Their territory, combined."

"Hey, look at this," Reid said. "Another ad. He didn't send us this one."

Jackson turned his way and pulled a latex glove from her pocket. Carefully, so as not to disturb the sheets around it, she removed the one Reid was pointing at to study it more closely.

"This is recent," she said. The paper was still crisp in her hand, not smudged or faded like most of the others.

" _Endgame_ by Samuel Beckett," Reid said. "Like chess?"

"Yes," she said. "Sort of. _Fin de partie_ in the original French, but there's no direct translation. The French title can refer to games other than chess; though Beckett was an avid chess player, he was never really content with the English translation."

From the doorway Morgan let out a low whistle. "Now we've got two of them," he said to no one in particular. "Maybe he collected the paper but didn't kill a girl that night? Maybe Henry didn't go see the play after all?"

"Check the dates," Gideon said.

"There's no date on the paper, strangely enough," Reid said.

"I think he means the dates of the play," Jackson said. "It's running this week. Closing night is tomorrow."

"Doesn't make sense," Morgan said. "Henry doesn't have a girl right now. Brady killed Lacey."

"Maybe he just likes to keep track of the shows around town, to keep tabs on Henry," Gideon said with a pensive frown.

"Maybe," Jackson and Reid both said as though they didn't really think so.

Morgan cocked a brow in Gideon's direction. "Are you kidding me with the Wonder Twins here?"

"Cool," Jackson said with a sudden grin. "I'd look good in purple spandex."

Blinking away the instant mental image her words conjured, Reid shook his head. "No way. The guy Wonder Twin always turned into lame stuff like a sponge or a bucket of water."

"Actually, Zan can transform into water in any form, including a hurricane or a blizzard, or, in later versions, an ice golem," Jackson said.

"Or a bucket of water," Morgan stressed.

Gideon cleared his throat. "Let's focus. Seven women are dead, and I don't like the implications of this ad. Have Garcia check with the box office to see if they keep computerized records, and if Henry has a ticket to closing night tomorrow. Jack, didn't you speak to a girl yesterday who knew him?"

"Yes," she said. She slid the clipping into an evidence bag Morgan offered. "Tanya. She worked the same area Lacey did. Apparently Henry was her client before he chose Lacey."

"Okay, you and Reid head back out there to see if you can find her. Hotch!"

He appeared in the doorway, brows lifted in a question. "Gideon."

"You and I will go to the station. Let's see if we can sweat some more information out of Lloyd Henry."

Hotch frowned. "I don't think that's a good idea. We don't have anything solid connecting him to the murders. We've already questioned him once. At this point he has no reason to confess to anything."

"We have his name on the lease for this apartment," Gideon said.

"While they did go to a lot of trouble to hide it, that makes him at most an accessory. He could easily deny he knew what Brady was up to here," Reid said. "I think Hotch is right. We need more before we pick Henry up again."

Sometimes Gideon let his passion for the work outstrip his law enforcement common sense. This was one of those times. He rubbed his face with a tired hand. "You're right. We show our hand too soon, we're done. We won't get anything out of Henry and we might lose our chance at Brady. So what do we do in the meantime?"

"Have Jurczak post men at his apartment. If he leaves, we'll know. He might lead us right to the third location and to Brady."

"Garcia can see if she can find another property in Henry and Brady's names. She knows at least four of the shell companies they use now."

"Good. All good. In the meantime, find Tanya," he said to Jackson and Reid. "The rest of us, let's build this case. I want it so watertight it'd keep the _Titanic_ afloat."

* * *

Jackson and Reid spent the next several hours combing the streets where they'd first met Tanya. None of the girls had seen her that day. None of them had seen Lloyd Henry. None of them had seen Joshua Brady.

Dusk was accompanied by an icy rain and plummeting temperatures. Reid suggested they call it and return to the station, but Jackson wanted to keep going.

"There are different girls out here after dark!" she said. "They might have seen something the daytime crew didn't."

He shoved his cold hands into his pockets. Shifted his weight from one numb foot to the other. "One circuit," he said. "After that we gotta head in. Jurczak's men can keep canvassing."

"They won't talk to cops in uniform, Reid. You know that."

"One circuit. The weather's so bad hardly anyone's out here anyway."

She acknowledged that with a brief grimace and they set out again, footsore and grim.

Once again they came up with nothing. Back at the same spot, full dark now, Jackson admitted defeat.

"Yeah, okay," she said. "Let's head back. I'm surprised we haven't heard from Hotch or Gideon."

"I guess they figure no news is bad news. They must not be making much progress either."

In the car he cranked up the heat and held his frozen fingers in front of the vent. "It doesn't mean he has her, Jack," he said once his teeth stopped chattering.

"I know." She sat slumped in the seat, her eyes fixed on some point outside the car.

"She doesn't really fit the pattern."

"No," she said, "but he's escalating. Lacey's murder didn't fit either, and we profiled that once the routine was broken once, it would be easier to do it again."

His expressive face worked as he tried to think of what to say. He wasn't good in situations like this. He needed Morgan or JJ. Even Hotch; he seemed to have thawed on Jackson a little bit.

"Jack—you know—this job—" He sighed. "I don't want to offer glib platitudes or make you feel like I'm being dismissive," he said.

She sat up a little and her head tilted his way. "I know you wouldn't do that."

"Okay." He tugged at his scarf, and now it was his turn to peer out the window. "Everyone talks about how hard this job is, but until you've seen it for yourself, you can't really know. Did you know the average BAU agent only lasts five years? It's too draining, seeing the worst humanity has to offer day after day."

She was quiet so long he wondered if she were going to reply at all. Finally, "I saw a lot during my time with the Company," she said, her voice low. "I did field work. The aftermath, usually. Figuring out how things got to—whatever point they'd gotten to." She cleared her throat. She skirted dangerously close to classified territory.

"It's not that that was easier," she said. "It was just—different. More detached. The damage was already done, and now it was time to solve the puzzle of who, how, and why."

"It's different with a killer who's still hunting," he said.

"Exactly. This thing with Tanya—if he did take her—is that something you ever get used to? Losing them right out from under you like that?"

"No," he said. He swallowed and ducked his head. "I don't think you should, though. I guess if you do, that's when it's time to move on. And, even if he did take her, we can still find her. We assume everyone's alive until we have direct evidence that says otherwise."

Her mouth curved in a sad smile. "That's a good directive."

"It is. And it helps. I promise."

"I believe you," she said. She turned her head and swiped at her eyes before sitting up straighter and fastening her seatbelt. "Let's get back to the station. They're probably wondering where the hell we are."


	8. Eight

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The team is frustrated by lack of progress on the case. Reid and Jackson make a late-night breakthrough.

It was more of the same at the station: frustration, dead ends, _nothing._ No property owned by any of the shell companies Garcia had found. No additional connection between Brady and Henry. Henry's ex-wife even said they hadn't been close; Brady had been best man for lack of anyone else.

Finally Hotch called it. He ordered everyone back to the hotel to get some rest. They could get started bright and early the next morning with fresh eyes.

He had ordered them to get some rest, and while Reid was certain he'd meant _sleep,_ sleep wasn't an option that night. Reid felt too restless and keyed-up. He sensed they were on the verge of a breakthrough in the case, despite the day's frustrations.

He sighed and turned over in bed for the hundredth time. They'd been muddled on this thing from the beginning. The UNSUB was leading them around by the nose, and they were constantly one step behind. Brady might be holding Tanya somewhere right now. That wasn't the previous MO, but his moves would become increasingly unpredictable as he escalated further.

At last Reid rose from the rumpled bed. He stared out the hotel window for a few fruitless minutes. He paced. He eyed his laptop and wondered if he could get some work done on his philosophy thesis.

Philosophy. He hadn't guessed philosophy in his running bet with Jackson. He also hadn't proposed Morgan's thought of English Lit. or some variation thereof. She certainly knew her theatre, spouting off those facts about Beckett.…

Reid stopped pacing. He blinked. Beckett. _Endgame_. With a thoughtful frown he booted up his laptop. As he waited for it to finish flashing logos at him, he pondered. _Endgame_ was the only unused ad posted in that room. If Brady had just been keeping track of "coming attractions," as Gideon had suggested, why only one? Why not a collection of ads that resembled Garcia's list?

He pulled up Google and typed in his search query. To his happy surprise, a full-text version of the play was the third hit. It was a one-act, Reid saw, and he wondered that it was being featured alone. Weren't one-acts usually clustered together, like a "night" of theatre or some such? Not really his area. He made a note to ask Jack about it.

Reading the text was a matter of a few seconds, and as he reached the end his frown deepened. Starting at the beginning he read it all again, and though several things began to fall into place, he had a lot more questions. He glanced at his phone and grumbled in frustration. It was too late to call Jackson; she knew this play well, from the sound of things, and he needed someone to bounce ideas off of, but it was after one in the morning.

He flipped open the phone anyway, but then realized with a start that he didn't know her number. How odd. She'd been a part of the team just a few days, and he didn't even have her contact number, but her name was the first that had popped into his head.

Reid ran a slender hand through his short brown curls, tugging a little, and the slight pain brought him back to reality. She was smart, and she knew Beckett. End of story. He drummed his fingertips against the desk and rose to pace again. His thoughts spiraled around and around, and he was about to give up in frustration when there was a knock on his door.

At one in the morning?

He hastily pulled on some pants and went to answer it. He wasn't all that surprised to see Elliot Jackson at his door, dressed in well-worn jeans and a Better than Ezra T-shirt, her hands thrust into her pockets and her expression hesitant. Her feet were bare, he noticed, and it made her seem very young and vulnerable.

"Um. So. It's way late," she began.

"I wasn't asleep," he said. "Something up?"

"I was hoping you'd be awake. Sleep sucks. I never do it. I was really busy not sleeping when it occurred to me—why _Endgame?"_

Reid blinked down at her. "Can you read minds over long distances?"

She looked startled. "There generally has to be proximity. Why?"

He gestured for her to follow him into his room and turned the laptop so she could see the screen. She leaned forward to read it, then let out a small laugh.

"Well. Great minds and all that." She straightened, pushing her hair back from her face, and smiled. "Any thoughts?"

"This play is…weird. I mean, brilliant. But weird."

Her smile widened. "Yes. You read it?" She shuddered at his affirmative nod. "The only thing worse than sitting through a Beckett play is reading one. All the pauses. You'd think it wouldn't matter, but it does. It so, so does."

He shrugged it off. "It's short. It only took a second."

She stared at him a moment before comprehension dawned. "Oh, right, the speed-reading thing." Her laugh rippled out again, low and quiet. "You're almost as much of a freak as me, aren't you?"

"Um." His hazel eyes, shaded gray by the T-shirt he wore, flicked to the laptop, then back to her.

The humor drained from her expression as she realized her faux pas. "I'm sorry. That came out wrong. I just meant…" She looked away, chewing her lower lip and fidgeting with a hotel pen she'd grabbed off the desk. "I've always been different. Special. Whatever." She waved it away impatiently. "This sounds sort of cheesy, but it's just nice to meet someone who understands what it's like. You know…" She made an encompassing gesture.

Reid did know. He'd said it before: he understood what it was like to be afraid of your own mind. He had always been different, like she said; special; whatever. He enjoyed it, mostly, but sometimes it was just a pain in the ass. "Is it true you have two Ph.D.s?" he said.

Again he got the wide-eyed blink before she caught up. "Yes. Yes, that is true. I guess I should've mentioned that when we made our bet. I'm working on my third, but I'm not there yet. I'm just a smarter-than-average kid with a lot of extra time, not a super-genius like _some_ people."

His mouth quirked. "You know, it's not really fair that you've seen my file but I can't read yours."

"My file is so classified God can't even read it," she said, only half joking.

"Hmmm," he replied mildly.

"Indeed. Anyway. I call myself a freak because it makes it hurt less when other people think it. I don't need to be a mind reader to know it's there; anyone can see it. You know the look."

Finely-made features twisted in wry acknowledgment. "I do. I guess in that case you can call me a freak, too. I'd be honored to be a member of your club."

"A freak club. Is that like a sideshow or something?"

"A speed-reading, mind-reading sideshow?"

Jackson laughed. "A sideshow with a bunch of reading? That sounds very boring, and very, very nerdy."

"Nail on the head," he said, grinning.

She returned his smile without thinking. She enjoyed the way a smile brightened his normally pensive face, like a brief glimpse of sunshine through rain clouds. He kept himself so closed, hiding behind his giant brain and his innate detachment, but underneath he was a warm, endearing person. She liked that—the layers—and she wondered what else he kept hidden. Shaking her head a little, she turned her gaze back to the small computer. "Um, we should probably get back to it."

"Right," he agreed, sobering. He cleared his throat and leaned down to scroll through the play. "So I was reading the play, and a few things stuck out. The main relationship is the codependent master/servant dynamic between Hamm and Clov. I keep coming back to it."

"Mmhmm," she said. "They despise each other, but neither can leave. Clov won't walk out even though he threatens to many times."

"Hamm tells him to go, orders him to go, but every time he starts to leave, Hamm calls him back. In the end, when he's finally, really going…he comes back." His voice rose as his excitement mounted, and he scrolled through the play quickly, pointing out key moments in the text.

"Yes," she said. Her eyes narrowed as she mulled it over. "And Hamm won't leave, either. He wants to die, but he won't commit suicide. He hates everything about living, but he doesn't have the courage to end it."

" _It's time it ended, yet I hesitate_ ," he quoted from memory.

"Exactly. There are critics who compare those lines to Hamlet's to be or not to be soliloquy." She frowned. _"Hamlet_ again. Henry said he didn't go see it; why the hell would he lie?" A shake of her head, then, "Do you have a copy of the list of shows Garcia put together for us?"

"Um, yeah, somewhere…" He searched through his brown messenger bag for a few moments before emerging with the list. He scanned the entire page in almost a single glance. "It's not here. Jack, _Endgame_ isn't on this list."

"What are you talking about?" She leaned over his shoulder to study the sheet.

"Look." He ran his finger down the page as she recited each name on it to make sure she didn't miss anything.

When she had read through them all she sank down in the desk chair, staring at the computer screen as though the answer would suddenly materialize out of the ether.

"Just so we're clear," she said, "we're saying that one of them—most likely Brady, but at this point who the fuck knows—took out this ad to lure the other one somewhere. One of our pair of killers is tired of their arrangement."

"We can get Garcia to trace who took out this ad. I bet it'll be Henry. Endgame: the final moves in a game of chess that lead to the king's capture. Checkmate."

"Is he Hamm or Clov?"

"Afraid to die or afraid to leave.… _If I could kill him I'd die happy_ , Clov says of Hamm."

She eyed him. "It's a little creepy how you can do that, given that you've read this thing once in your entire life."

"Twice, actually. Tell me what I'm thinking right now and we'll talk about creepy," he said, mouth quirking.

She smiled back in appreciation. "Touché. So is Henry communicating with his partner or luring his adversary?"

"That's the question, isn't it?"

* * *

"I'm not sure I follow," Hotch said to Reid the next morning as the team assembled at the police station. "You think the ad isn't real?"

"Not just think. _Endgame_ isn't on the list of plays Garcia gathered. It's not playing at the theatre listed in the ad, or at any other theatre in Detroit on these dates—at least not according to this list," Reid said.

"Garcia wouldn't have made a mistake like that," Morgan said.

"We spent several hours studying the play last night, Hotch," Reid said. "We think Henry identifies with one of the two main characters in it, and he put out this ad. He's calling Brady to end it."

"We?" Hotch said, expression neutral.

"Jack and I," Reid said with a glance at her.

Hotch tilted his head her way. "You're not saying much."

She cleared her throat; tucked a lock of hair behind her ear. "It's Reid who really figured this out. I just know the play."

Hotch gave her a long, penetrating stare, but he turned back to Reid without comment. "You think Henry is the dominant of the two? And Brady followed his lead?"

Reid glanced at Jackson, and she gave a little flick of her eyebrows, like a facial shrug. "We aren't sure. Henry's remorse about the women's deaths seemed genuine, but that doesn't mean he's the submissive. We still don't know who's Hamm and who's Clov."

"Hamm and Clov?" Morgan said.

"The characters from the play. Hamm is the dominant, master character who longs for death but won't take the final step. Clov is his submissive servant who longs to leave Hamm but won't walk away," Reid said.

"All right," Gideon said, stepping forward at last. "Let's get Garcia on the horn and find out for sure who took out this ad. Check and see what—if any—show is playing in this theatre right now. Also I want anything new she has on Joshua Brady."

"Are we ready to bring Henry back in?" Morgan said.

Hotch shook his head. "No. He's got police protection at the moment, so we're watching him. He's not going anywhere. Right now we need to concentrate on finding Brady.

"Morgan, I want you and JJ to take some cops with victims' pictures and canvass the area around Brady's apartment. We need to know if anyone saw Brady with any of the girls or with Henry, or if anyone's seen them around the neighborhood.

"Gideon, Reid, Jackson, we're heading back to Brady's apartment. We need to get a closer look at the papers he left, and we need to see if there are any other surprises."

"What about the theatre?" Jackson said.

"Which one?" Hotch said.

"The one where _Endgame_ isn't playing. I assume it actually exists; these men aren't stupid, after all. Shouldn't we check it out?"

"You and I will hit it on the way to Brady's. JJ, make sure Detective Jurczak is up-to-date. Everyone clear?"

There were nods all around, and the team went their separate ways.

* * *

Gideon and Reid rode in silence most of the way to Brady's apartment, each agent wrapped in his own thoughts. The city, just beginning to wake, sped by the windows, and Reid stared out at it without really seeing anything. Gideon drove carefully as he always did, but he drummed his hands against the wheel, a sure sign that he was weighing something.

"Two UNSUBs," he finally said.

"It's what we profiled. The second time."

"I questioned Henry. I believed him. He's been leading us around this whole time. I missed what you and Jack picked up on."

"So you think Henry is Hamm?" Reid said.

"Yes." He ran a hand over his close-cropped hair as they sat at a stoplight. "I think Lacey's murder wasn't part of their plan. Brady decided to expose Henry, and Henry decided to end the game."

"Henry despises everything in the world, including himself. It's why he loses himself in the plays; they allow him escape," Reid said. "Most of all he despises the part of him that can't stay away from prostitutes, but he's too weak to kill them himself."

"Like how Hamm is too weak to kill himself, even though he longs for death," Gideon said.

"So he recruited Brady to do it for him. But what keeps them tied together? Why won't Brady leave Henry, like Clov won't leave Hamm?"

"I don't know," Gideon said. "Hopefully we'll find something in Brady's apartment that will at least partially answer that question. Tell me, Spencer: what happens at the end of this play?"

Reid's mouth quirked. "Nothing. It's a Beckett play, sir: Jackson explained to me that nothing ever happens in Beckett plays."

"Yes," he said, "that's the point. So, more accurately, what _doesn't_ happen?"

"Hamm doesn't die and Clov doesn't leave. They both remain. That's the last line of the play, in fact: _You remain_. It's generally thought to be directed at the audience. Hamm's speaking to his handkerchief, but still."

Gideon parked the big black SUV in front of Brady's building and sat quietly a moment, lost in thought. "Hhhmm," he said at last. "Somehow I think Henry's endgame is going to be a bit more final than Beckett's, don't you?"

"Life doesn't usually imitate Theatre of the Absurd," Reid said as he climbed out of the car.

"I guess we still have a few things to be thankful for."


	9. Nine

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The case heats up. Hotch and Jackson move in on their suspect. Morgan and JJ make a startling discovery.

**Quick note before we start:** if y'all would like to see the Man Ray Jackson describes, you can find it [here](https://www.felicecalchi.com/an-other-body/). It's creepy. I'm not a fan. Now on with the show...

* * *

Hotch and Jackson's ride was similarly quiet for most of its duration, but for different reasons. She was sure he'd paired the team up like this so that he could chide her for her careless arrogance earlier in the case. She hadn't seen the two UNSUB angle. She'd believed Brady was the dominant partner. She'd thought she had all the answers, when in truth she was an inexperienced rube.

As though he were the mind reader rather than she, Hotch broke the silence with an echo of her thoughts. "You and Reid are leaning more toward Henry as the dominant?"

She kept her eyes trained on the window. "Reid has a theory, I'm sure. You'd have to ask him."

"I'm asking you," he replied tersely.

She glanced at him then, a quick look out of clear green eyes set in a tense face. "Are you really sure I'm qualified to answer that question?"

Hotch sighed. As he'd told her yesterday, he had been pleasantly surprised with her performance thus far: she'd been carrying her weight, adding valuable insight to the case; but he sure as hell wasn't going to hold her hand as she withdrew into a private pity-party. "Do you think you single-handedly convinced a team of experienced profilers that their profile was wrong and Brady was pulling the strings the whole time?"

Jackson turned to him, surprised. "I don't know. It was the angle I pushed. My theory."

"Yes, Jackson: _theory._ And it was a good one, and at least partially right. Because it was a good theory, and because there was evidence to support it, we went with it. If you think your word alone convinced us all to abandon a solid profile that matched the evidence we had—that's pretty damn arrogant."

She gaped at him a moment before snapping her jaw closed and swallowing hard. "Yeah," she said, "I guess it is. I hadn't thought of it that way. But, sir, I was wrong."

"Partially," he said. "Did you think you'd never be wrong? Were you never wrong at the CIA?"

"Well, no, of course not, but—"

"Why would this be any different? We call them theories because we test them. Sometimes they're right, sometimes they're wrong."

Nodding slowly, she turned her gaze back toward the window. "I guess I have a lot to learn."

"Of course you do," he replied, his tone softening a little. "But you've got time. This is a lesson for you. What we do isn't an exact science, and we can't make assumptions. We have to be willing to revise our theories as we go."

They'd arrived at the theatre by then, and she looked over at him with a wry, self-deprecating tilt to her lips as she reached for the door handle. "I guess admitting you have a problem is the first step, right?"

His mouth flickered in an almost-smile, but before he could reply his phone rang. Dark brows drew together as he read the caller ID display. "Morgan," he told her. "Morgan, you're on speaker."

"Hotch, man, something's going down. JJ and I are canvassing Brady's neighborhood, and we're getting hits left and right on Henry's picture. From last night."

"Yesterday?" Hotch said. "When we were in Brady's apartment?"

"Yep, sounds like. Nobody's recognizing any of the vics, but some of them recognize the girl Jackson and Reid were looking for yesterday."

"Tanya?" Jackson said. "What was she doing on that side of town?"

"No idea, but it looks like Henry had her with him in his car. He parked on a side street and sat for a while. We aren't sure how long."

"That means he knows we found the kill room. That was part of his plan all along. He's going to be feeling arrogant. If he's in communication with Brady at all, that could cause him to spiral further."

"There's more," Morgan said. "I heard from Garcia. She traced the ad back to yet another shell corp, and that same LLC? Owns the theatre."

"This theatre?" Hotch said with a glance out the window.

"Yep. Garcia says Henry bought it about three months ago, and since then he's applied for several construction permits. He's poured a ton of money into that place, Hotch."

The more Morgan spoke, the graver Hotch's face grew. "You and JJ head to Henry's place. I want to know if he's there. If he's not, tear it apart; I want to know every single detail of his life, understand?"

"Got it. What about you two?"

"It looks like this theatre is more important than we thought. We're there now. Call Gideon when you get to Henry's; tell him everything you just told us."

"We're on it. Be careful, Hotch. This whole thing stinks."

"You're telling me," he said before hanging up. Hotch and Jackson sat in silence for a moment. "Morgan said Henry's been spending a lot of money fixing the place up, but it looks pretty run down to me," he said.

"All the improvements must be on the inside. Important, I'm sure, but odd. And, look…no handicap ramp." She pointed to the sweeping front staircase that led to the theatre's only visible entrance. "Any public building remodeled since 1991 has to be made to comply with ADA codes. He's remodeled, but it's not up to code on the outside. He obviously has no intention of using it as a public theatre any time soon."

He gave a thoughtful nod. "You and Reid think Lacey's murder wasn't part of their plan, correct?"

"Yes."

"Henry's wife kicked him out six months ago, but he only bought this building three months ago."

"They both would have been angry at the forced relocation, but perhaps Brady, as the actual killer, more so," she said, picking up his thoughts by instinct, not special ability.

"Henry bought this place to convert it into a new kill nest for Brady."

"But he couldn't wait, so he killed Lacey and sent the newspapers to the cops. Orrrr he killed Lacey and Henry sent the papers. How does _Endgame_ fit into this? Henry had to've placed that ad before Lacey's murder."

"You just said it: Henry sent the body parts. The ad was part of it."

"Okay." She chewed the inside of her lower lip. "But why bring Tanya to Brady's apartment? Why take that risk?"

"That I don't know. Henry must be devolving too. Taking more risks."

"Maybe the escalation was Henry's all along," she said. "If he's truly the dominant, maybe he somehow forced or coerced Brady into killing Lacey in that alley."

The lines on Hotch's face deepened. "Tell me about the Man Ray print in Henry's house."

"Gideon didn't seem to think that was significant."

"Gideon was dealing with a completely different profile at the time. Humor me."

She drew in a breath. "Um, well...I looked it up last night, but I couldn't find much info on that specific photo. It's from a series he did in the late '30s using a disembodied torso of the Venus de Milo. The print Henry had was of a woman lying on her back, holding the torso up to her body. So like the plaster torso was her own. But the angle and the shadows…at first glance it seems like her throat is slit or she's decapitated, and like her arm has been cut off as well. Her eyes are closed, so she could be sleeping or;" she shrugged; "dead."

His brows flicked upward. "So it looked like the woman was being displayed in three separate pieces? Torso, head, arm?"

"Yeah, I guess so. And hands. Her hands were visible, but her wrists and lower arms were out of frame." She paused and her eyes widened. "You think he's keeping them. I mean, not in the freezer. Not all the time."

"It's possible. The newspaper ads are Brady's trophy, but where are Henry's?"

"Not all serial killers keep trophies."

"No, that's true, but you said Henry collects ticket stubs. It would explain why they've collected the body parts. I seriously doubt they're eating them, and outside of that, it doesn't serve a purpose."

"Dahmer saved the skulls and other parts from his victims," she said. "He wanted to keep them with him forever."

"He cannibalized them for the same reason. But if Henry is willing to let go of even a few of the body parts, then that isn't his goal. There's something else at play here."

"Jesus _fucking_ Christ!" she said. The answer had exploded in her brain like Fourth of July fireworks. " _At play_! The play's the thing! Fucking _Hamlet_ again, of course." She rolled her eyes while Hotch looked at her like she'd lost her mind.

She made an impatient gesture. "He was casting us, Hotch. Reid, Gideon, and me. It's right there in the profile: the plays allow him to live out his fantasy, but when the girls spoil the fantasy, he has them killed."

"So that the fantasy can continue," Hotch said. "It's much harder to store an entire body than pieces of one."

"Harder to dress it up and pose it, too," she said with a shudder. She turned her head to glare at the theatre. "It's a public building. Do we need a warrant?"

Hotch's phone binged before he could answer. "Gideon's on his way with one now."

"So we should wait."

"Yep," he said.

They sat in charged, restless silent for about thirty seconds.

"What if he has Tanya in there?" she said. "He or Brady could be killing her right now."

His face was tense as he weighed the options. Protocol said they wait. But Jackson was right: Tanya could be dead by the time backup and the warrant got there. There was a clear and present danger to a potential victim that had been seen in the UNSUB's company less than twenty-four hours ago.

A decisive nod. "We can't wait," he said. "Let's go."

* * *

Outside Lloyd Henry's apartment building Morgan tapped on the window of the police cruiser with a knuckle, and the cop inside nearly spilled his coffee in surprise. He rolled down the window, clearly irritated. "Can I help you, buddy?" he said.

Morgan displayed his credentials. "Yeah, I think so. Been pretty quiet so far?"

The guy snapped to attention, fumbling a little as he placed the paper cup in the car's holder. "I just got on a couple of hours ago, but so far nothin'. Here's the report from last night."

Morgan scanned the page quickly before he showed it to JJ. She shook her head, bright blond hair picking up the morning sun like a beacon on the gray street.

"Nothing. If he skipped, he must've gone out the back."

"It couldn't really be that simple—could it?" Morgan said.

"Hey, look," the cop said, "is there a problem? Our guy's sittin' tight up there, snug as a bug in a rug."

"We've got witnesses who place him on the street yesterday," Morgan said. "Our boss sent us over to check it out. You wanna head up with us, or stay out here?" It always paid to play nice with the locals.

"On the street? Ain't possible." He frowned, stroked a well-trimmed salt-and-pepper beard. "Let's go check it out. I'll call it in."

Morgan nodded. "We'll wait for you inside. Cold as shit out here."

The cop grunted in appreciation. "Got that right. Gimme five."

Morgan and JJ headed inside where they confirmed that the building had only one entrance. "It was dark last night," JJ said. "No moon. Everyone here wears thick coats, hats, scarves; it's easy to disguise yourself without even trying."

Before Morgan could reply, the uniform from outside joined them. "I'm Agent Morgan and this is Agent Jareau," Morgan said.

"Klontz," he said with a nod.

"All right, Officer Klontz, let's see if our boy's at home." The three took the stairs quickly, and Morgan pounded on Henry's door with a closed fist. "Lloyd Henry, FBI and Detroit PD. Open up."

Klontz shifted uneasily from one foot to the other. "Look, our guy watched him all night—"

"No one's blaming you or your department, Officer," JJ said. "Henry is more than any of us suspected."

"JJ, call Detective Jurczak. See if he can rush a warrant. We gotta get in there," Morgan said.

She nodded and made the call. "He's on the way," she said a few minutes later as she disconnected. "Let's go grab the super so we're ready for him."

"No way," Morgan said. "I'm not waiting. Hotch and Jack are at that theatre now; they need what we find in here."

"I'll go get the super," Klontz said and hurried away.

It wasn't long before the three were standing inside Lloyd Henry's meticulously clean apartment. "Wouldja look at this place?" Klontz said. "I've seen operating rooms messier."

"Yeah, fits the profile. Our boss mentioned it before," Morgan said. He noted what the other team members had noticed yesterday: the obsessive order, the creepy Man Ray, the furniture that looked brand new, the cork board covered in ticket stubs.

"Wow. He went to a lot of plays," JJ said. "All closing nights, you think?"

"No," Morgan said, jaw tense, "I think he saved closing nights for the murders. They were special to him. Look." He pointed to the board. "There's a ticket for _Hamlet,_ but it's not a stub. He really didn't go."

"Jesus. Agents, get a load of this," Klontz said as he opened the coat closet. It was full of coats, but none of them appeared to be Henry's. The closet contained ten matching, brand new, perfectly aligned women's coats. They still had the tags. Something about the sight, so cold, so clinical, was desperately unnerving.

Morgan and JJ stood staring, identical expressions of horror and comprehension dawning on their faces. "These must be like the coat he gave Lacey," JJ said at last.

"He said he gave a coat to some of the other girls, too," Morgan said, voice gone cool with anger. "God damn it. The coat. That's how Brady knew which girl to kill. That's how he knew to go after Angela Kline, even though it wasn't closing night yet. I've gotta call Gideon."

* * *

"There're vests in the back," Hotch said as they jumped out of the big car.

They donned the bulky vests, checked their weapons, and rushed toward the dilapidated building. "We have no idea what we're going to find in here," he said. "Whatever happens, we stick together. Do you understand?"

She nodded. It wasn't her first hoedown, but he was the boss. "Yes, sir."

They started up the steps, but halfway up he stopped. "And no funny business," he said, gesturing toward his head.

She frowned indignantly. "My _funny business_ has proved invaluable in numerous—"

"Jackson," he huffed.

"Yes, sir," she said. They reached the graffitied double doors and hesitated. "Do we knock?" she whispered.

He glared at her. He pressed his palm against one of the doors and pushed. It was locked, of course. Padlocked with a chain. "The chain and padlock are new," Hotch said.

"Yes. And heavy; we're not getting through those with our good looks and charming repartee."

This earned her another glare. "I doubt Henry wrestles with this chain every day. It would be too visible to the street, and it would take too much time, especially if he came here with Tanya. Let's look for another way in."

They circled the building, and in the back was a much smaller, less impressive door. The lock was smaller, too. "This one I can handle," Jackson said. "It will require a bit of funny business, but not the kind you were referring to earlier."

He eyed her askance, but comprehension dawned when she pulled out a set of lock picks. "What are you doing with those?" he said.

She grinned. "They teach you lots of useful skills at the CIA. Shall I? Or should we wait?"

He considered briefly, but then did a double take. "Absolutely not. It looks like we wait for backup."

"Or…" She tried the knob and it turned in her hand. The door drifted open on quiet hinges. "We walk right in because it's unlocked."

"Stay behind me," Hotch said, "and for God's sake stay quiet."

Raising a brow at him, she fell in as he moved through the door. They didn't have their weapons drawn yet, but they both felt tense, and their adrenaline was pumping. Clearing her mind as best she could, Jackson tried to listen for any wayward minds in the buildings—especially Tanya's.

"Lloyd Henry," Hotch called out, his voice echoing in the empty, cavernous space, "this is Agent Hotchner and Dr. Jackson with the FBI. Show yourself."

Silence.

"The door was unlocked, and we have witnesses that place you near the scene of a crime. We're going to enter and search the premises."

Still nothing.

Despite the brightness outside, inside the theatre it was almost pitch black. The agents pulled their flashlights and allowed the points of light to penetrate the darkness. The beams showed brief flashes of a space as rundown and neglected as the exterior. It was as cold, silent, and dark as a tomb.

Jackson shivered. "We should look for a basement," she whispered. "It would be more soundproof down there, and the money he spent must've gone somewhere."

"Mr. Henry, we know about Tanya. We just want to talk to you," Hotch said. Jackson's light flashed across something and he reached behind him to guide it back. "There," he said as the beam illuminated an exit door.

They approached it slowly. When the door swished open on the same silent, well-oiled hinges as the other one, they exchanged knowing looks. Hotch pulled out his weapon and nodded for her to do the same, and they cautiously descended into the depths.


	10. Ten

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Gideon and Reid are stymied by modern phone technology (modern circa 2006, that is). Hotch and Jackson discover Lacey's fate. The team finds the UNSUBs and their victims.

Gideon and Reid weren't making much headway with Brady's apartment. He'd cleaned it out almost completely before he split, leaving only the newspapers. That in itself was odd, as Jackson had pointed out, since they seemed to be his main trophy. "Except the body parts," Reid said. "What did he do with Lacey's body parts?"

"You said it yesterday: there's no freezer here, no place to store remains. Either he has somewhere else to store them, or he disposes of them somehow," Gideon said.

"I don't know. It seems like a lot of trouble if he's just going to dispose of them." He frowned down at the bit of newsprint he was studying. "Do you think Hotch and Jack will find Tanya alive?"

"I honestly don't know," Gideon said. "I hope so." Before he could say anything further, his phone rang. He answered it and drifted toward the window.

Reid watched his mentor's brow crease as he listened to the caller. His expression grew increasingly troubled until he rang off with thanks. "That was Morgan," he said. "They're at Henry's place. They found a closet full of women's coats."

"Coats?" Reid said, his own expression becoming a mirror of Gideon's.

"Brand new," he said. "All exactly alike."

Reid's face cleared and his eyes flared in realization. "The gifts. He gives the girls a coat, and it marks them. That's how he chooses the victims."

Gideon nodded. He rubbed his hands and frowned deeply. "He patronizes prostitutes often, and very few of them end up dead. Some, though, he develops a deeper relationship with—at least in his mind. When he gives them the coat, that's Brady's signal that the fantasy is shattered, and it's time for Brady to end it for him. On closing night, of course."

"He gave Lacey a coat, but he didn't take her to see _Hamlet_ the night of the murder," Reid said.

"He broke routine. Brady killed her anyway. Henry was already growing tired of the partnership: he wanted out. When Brady went rogue it was the final straw."

"Now he has Tanya. He's cutting Brady out of the process altogether."

Gideon glared at his phone and pushed several buttons. "How do you—Reid, how do you do that text thing?"

"Text thing?"

"I don't want to call Hotch. He could be talking to Henry or Brady right now. But I need him to know we're on the way with a warrant for the theatre."

"Oh." Reid shifted awkwardly. He didn't really know how to do that text thing either. "Um. Maybe one of the officers knows?"

Gideon sighed. "Thirty years' profiling experience and a one eighty-seven IQ between us, we can't even figure out how to send a text message."

* * *

The basement walls were solid concrete, but at least the flick of a light switch provided a steady fluorescent glow and they were able to stow their flashlights. A long, narrow hallway offered several closed doors along its length, and Jackson and Hotch shared a rueful glance. Plenty of places for two UNSUBs to hide.

They pressed their backs together and made their slow way down the corridor. The first door was on Hotch's side, and he kicked it in with ease. The room proved to be a narrow, empty closet.

Jackson, though small at only 5'3", handled the first door on her side with little trouble. She stepped just inside a dark room and scanned it quickly before pronouncing it clear.

Another door on Hotch's side: empty.

Jackson's next room: empty.

One more door loomed, and both agents braced themselves, sure that trouble waited behind the final panel. Hotch pushed it open, and they burst through, weapons ready. They scanned the room, but it, too, was empty.

"That was rather anticlimactic," Jackson said. She relaxed her stance but didn't holster her weapon.

"No kidding," Hotch said. He did a circuit of the room. "I was expecting…something."

"Did we miss a door?"

"I don't think so. Maybe we missed something upstairs?" he said, starting toward the door. He paused a moment, then detoured to study a wall. "These walls are thick. Possibly there's a hidden door somewhere, like at Brady's apartment."

His back was to the door, and, as they'd noticed upstairs, all the hinges were well cared for, so it was only natural that he didn't hear anything even so close. He saw her face change, though, a minuscule tightening of muscles under smooth skin, a change so tiny that only someone trained as he was would have noticed it.

He tensed instantly, but something about the look she gave him told him to _stay still, don't move, whatever you do don't fucking move_. He wondered inanely if she were using some sort of mind whammy on him, but then decided that he didn't give a damn if it meant the difference between his blood being safely in his body where it belonged or pooled out on the concrete floor, like Lacey's in that alley.

"I told you we had company," a voice said.

Hotch recognized Lloyd Henry, and he closed his eyes, silently cursing himself. How could he have been stupid enough to turn his back on an open door? If Henry shot him he deserved it.

"Don't you want to say hello to our company?" Henry said.

Jackson still had her weapon in hand, a black gun in a dark, dark room. Henry hadn't seen it yet, and he hadn't seen Hotch, and she wanted to keep it that way. She kept her eyes on him, concentrating all her attention on his face, not daring to look away.

"I'm sorry," Henry said. "She's shy."

"She?" Jackson croaked through a throat suddenly gone bone dry.

Henry presented what he was holding, and it was all she could do not to shriek at the sight of Lacey Middleton's severed head cradled in Lloyd Henry's loving arms. Hotch saw the alarming change on her face, the sudden pallor, the greenish tinge, and a terrible, sick feeling washed over him.

"Oh, Lloyd," she said, "what have you done?"

"Me?" he said. He sounded genuinely puzzled. "I didn't do it. Josh did. He did it for me. I just wanted her to be perfect."

"But, Lloyd, you told me you cared for her. Josh hurt her. He sliced her throat and cut her into pieces. Look at her, Lloyd; that's not the woman you cared for."

He looked down at the head, his face a hideous parody of affection. "She's so beautiful," he said. "Isn't she beautiful? She's all mine, my perfect leading lady."

Hotch shifted just a little, hoping to angle his body Henry's way, but he was too close. Henry's head snapped up, and Jackson coughed to cover the sound. "I'm sorry, Lloyd. This basement is cold. Can we go upstairs?"

His blue eyes narrowed. "You didn't come here alone. I heard you. Where's Agent Hotchner?"

She blinked, her own eyes wide and guileless. "We split up. I'm not sure where he is. You didn't see him?"

"You're very pretty," Henry said as he stepped toward her.

The non sequitur alarmed her, but she managed to keep her voice calm. Friendly, even. "Thank you, Lloyd," she said. "Why don't you put, um, Lacey down so we can talk more comfortably?"

"I thought you'd be perfect as Eliza Doolittle."

"Oh really?"

"Yes, definitely. Can you do a cockney accent?" He moved steadily closer, and as he spoke Hotch adjusted his weight. Lifted his weapon a fraction.

"Um, maybe. I don't know. I'm from Mississippi. Maybe you could change it up? Set it in New York with a Southern bumpkin Eliza?" She flicked her gaze Hotch's way for a millisecond, then back to Henry. "Do you think _My Fair Lady_ or _Pygmalion?_ I've always been a fan of Shaw. Do you like _Saint Joan_? Or maybe something completely different, like _Saint Joan of the Stockyards_?"

Henry's eyes went so wide she could see the whites all around, even in the pale light from the hall. "You know Brecht?" he said.

 _That's right, Jackson. Keep him talking_ , Hotch thought. Her stream of words covered the slight rustle of his clothes. The tiny metallic sound of his hand against his weapon.

"Oh, yes," she said. "I know Beckett, too. Tell me, Lloyd. Why _Endgame?"_

He chuckled, his smile sly. "Oh, that was clever, wasn't it? I got Josh here! He came straight here when he saw me pick up Tanya last night."

Jackson frowned. "I don't understand. Tonight's closing, right? I mean, it would be."

"Yes," Henry said, "but I always take the girl to the show the night _before_ closing, then Josh collects her for me when I go on closing. So I picked Tanya up last night, and Josh was going to collect her tonight. Only he can't. I already collected her!"

Her eyes flicked toward Hotch again, a barely perceptible movement, but she knew she had to keep looking at Henry. Not Hotch. Only Henry. It was just the two of them in this small, dark basement room, and to keep him talking was a matter of life and death.

"Is Tanya…like Lacey, Lloyd?" she said.

"No, not yet," he said carelessly. "Maybe I won't keep her. She's not as pretty as you. I like your idea about a Southern Eliza. We should talk some more about that. Maybe you can try on a few of the costumes I had in mind."

Hotch made his move. He took one long step and pressed his gun against the man's neck. "That's enough, Lloyd," he said. "You're under arrest. Let me see your hands."

Jackson raised her own weapon and pointed it at Henry's chest. "Put her down, Lloyd," she said, her voice soft and deadly. "Put her down, or I swear I will shoot your ass right now."

* * *

Hotch's phone rang just as they emerged into the wan morning light. He reached for it with his free hand. "Hotch." A pause as he listened. "No, I got your text…. Yes, we're still at the theatre. We've got Henry; he says Brady is here with Tanya…. How long?" He glanced back at Jackson. "Good. We'll wait for you."

He hung up and holstered his phone. "Reid and Gideon are five minutes out."

She relaxed a fraction. "Excellent. Let's hope the Detroit PD is as timely in their response."

Jackson wasn't disappointed: police cars were screeching into place as they rounded the building. Per Hotch's request, their lights and sirens were turned off, but they were moving. A door opened and Detective Steen, Jurczak's partner, tumbled out.

"Agent Hotchner, Dr. Jackson. I see you found our lost boy!"

"Oh yeah," Jackson said, "and he has been up to no good."

After handing Henry off to an officer, Hotch filled the detective in on what they'd seen inside the building, and what Henry had told them. Steen rubbed his balding head in consternation. "Jesus H.R. Christ. What a clusterfuck. We goin' in?"

"As soon as Gideon and Reid get here. That should be them now," he said with a nod toward the black SUV pulling up behind the barricade of blue and whites. The car's doors slammed and the two agents rushed toward them. They already wore vests, and Reid's hand hovered near his holster.

"Hotch, Jack, Detective. From what Henry told Agents Hotchner and Jackson, there's a woman's life at stake here," Gideon said to Steen. "We need to move quickly. Let's take a small team, go in fast. I don't want any bullets flying unless the UNSUB makes a direct threat to the hostage or to one of us. Okay?"

Steen nodded. "Sounds good to me. Three of my guys, your team. Let's hit it."

"Hotch, you and Jack have been in there. You two take point."

Without further ado they were off, weapons out and pointed toward the sidewalk. They rounded the building, hit the back door, and made their cautious way through the darkened theatre. They took the stairs in teams of two, keeping low, and Hotch and Jack both called an all clear as they hit the bottom.

"Cover me," Hotch said into his radio as he moved toward the closet. The team arrayed behind him with their backs to him and weapons trained up and down the hallway. He reached into the closet and flipped the switch Henry had pointed out on their way upstairs. The back wall began to swing open, and Hotch raised his weapon. All was silent and dark.

"Joshua Brady!" Hotch called. "We're the FBI and the police! Release the woman and come out now!"

Silence again, in a strange repeat of earlier.

Hotch and Jackson exchanged wordless glances, and they both began to inch forward, shining their lights into the dark space. They had only gone a few feet when she held up a hand to halt the team's progress. "Did you hear that?" she whispered to Hotch.

He narrowed his eyes, listening hard, and after a second he nodded. "Tanya," he said.

"Tanya, can you hear me?" Jackson called. "My name is Elliot Jackson. I talked to you day before yesterday, out on the street. I'm here to help you. Make a noise if you can. I'm with the FBI; we're going to help you." There was another whimper, louder this time, and the rest of the team fanned out behind them to shine their lights around the room.

"There," Gideon said. His beam illuminated the far wall and a bizarre tableau.

"What in the name of all that's holy…?" Steen said, mouth agape.

 _"Endgame,"_ Reid said. "He staged it after all. That must be Brady."

The man propped against the wall must, indeed, be Brady, but he was quite dead. He was tied to a ladder, Clov's ladder from the play, and his throat was slit like a red, gaping grin below his chin. A wheelchair sat in the center of the scene, empty, waiting for Henry's return. Two trashcans were set against the back wall. On one was a severed head in a shabby old wig.

Jackson turned her light on it and grimaced. "Nell," she said. Hamm's mother, as played by one of Henry and Brady's victims.

Tanya was in the other bin, alive but bound. She, too, wore a wig, this one in a man's style.

"Nagg," Reid said. Hamm's father.

"Why are we just…?" Jackson shoved her weapon into its holster and rushed toward Tanya. "Are you hurt?" she said and pressed a hand against the girl's shoulder a moment before carefully untying her. What she saw when she touched Tanya's skin made her flinch, but she kept her gaze steady.  
Gideon and Hotch joined them a moment later and helped her pull the girl from the large trash bin. Her legs were so cramped she couldn't stand, so Hotch carried her from the room as Gideon called for a medic.

Elliot was left standing in the center of Henry's sick tableau, surrounded by cops but feeling alone. Her chin dropped to her chest, and when she raised it again she met Reid's eyes. He didn't try to offer a smile or any sort of reassurance. For that she was grateful.

" _No one that ever lived ever thought so crooked as we_ ," he quoted, his voice quiet and grave.

She held out a hand. "Do me a favor?" she said. "Give me some new pictures."

"In your head?"

"Yes. Please?"

He swallowed, but after a brief hesitation he pressed his palm to hers. "Physics magic," he said.

Her mouth curved a little. "I like it."

"Come on," he said. "Let's get out of here."

He held her hand until they reached the stairs. With one last squeeze he let go, and they left the basement to join their team above ground.


	11. Epilogue: Above Ground

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> A lil wrap-up on the plane.

"Only someone as obsessive as Lloyd Henry would devise a system so complex," Reid said later that afternoon. He dropped his bag into one of the plane's beige leather seats and settled down next to it.

"Find a prostitute, become a regular, give her a coat. That was Brady's signal to start following her. When Henry took her to a show, that was the signal to kill her the next night," Morgan said.

"The closing nights, of course, being the murder nights," Hotch said.

"Henry had Brady kill the women so he could 'perfect' them. He had all their heads. It wasn't just about the relationships, though. He also liked casting them in different shows," Reid said.

"Crazy shit. And all a bit too elaborate for a poacher with a temper," Morgan said with a brief grin in Jackson's direction.

"Indeed," Gideon said.

"His system was so complicated because he had to be sure each woman was absolutely perfect before he added her to his collection," Reid said. "Otherwise he'd be stuck with, ah, 'flawed merchandise.'"

"Ew," JJ said.

Reid shrugged. "Not my point of view. But yeah."

"Did we ever figure out why _Endgame?"_ she said.

Reid's face brightened and he leaned forward. "Brady was his Clov, but with the move things changed," he said. "They weren't stuck in the same routine anymore. It didn't fit Henry's fantasy the way he wanted. By killing Brady he could make him perfect too, just like the girls. He wanted to surround himself with what he held dear, the same way Hamm did. The symmetry of it was too much for him to resist."

His expressive hands moved as he spoke and his hazel eyes were bright. He really did light up when he had the chance to teach someone something, Jackson thought. On a lot of people that tendency to lecture might be tedious, but he was so thrilled with it, with the sheer joy of sharing what he knew, that it was actually…rather sweet. Almost charming, in its way.

She let her mind wander as she tuned out their conversation. Her eyes roamed the interior of the plane for a moment until she realized Hotch was watching her. "Can I help you, sir?" she said.

He rose and moved to the unoccupied seat beside her, but for a time he said nothing. She sat looking at him, her expression politely curious. He clearly had something he needed to say, but she could wait.

"In the basement," he began at last.

"Yes?"

"Before we went inside, I gave you an order. I was just wondering…" He trailed off awkwardly. Frowning, he looked away, out the window, around the plane, anywhere but at her.

"I didn't use my ability on you or Henry, sir," she said. "I thought about it. I could have used it to—" She broke off. There were aspects of her ability she wasn't ready to share yet. A page or two she'd slipped out of her filed before handing it over to Gideon. "To see where Brady and Tanya were, but you told me not to. Also, I wanted to prove to myself that I could handle the situation without it."

His dark gaze settled on her at last, and his expression softened, his mouth flickering upward. "At the risk of sounding condescending, I'm proud of you. You did well in there. You kept your cool in a tough situation, and the UNSUB was apprehended without anyone else getting hurt."

"With all due respect, Agent Hotchner," she said, "I'm new to the Bureau, but I'm no rookie. That wasn't my first talk-down."

He looked slightly taken aback, but after a moment he let out a small chuckle. "I'm sorry, Dr. Jackson. Of course." There was another pause, then, "You know, _Jack_ is my son's name."

She cocked her head and fixed him with a quizzical look. "So you said."

"The rest of the team seems to have taken to the nickname, though."

"Yes."

"Maybe I could call you EJ. We have a JJ, but I doubt she'd mind."

Now it was her turn to be taken aback. After a stunned moment, she laughed brightly, the sound causing heads to turn in their direction. "Yes, okay. Maybe I'll actually start calling you Hotch," she said.

"I'd like that. It's what my team calls me."

She smiled with genuine warmth. "So you said," she repeated softly.

A charming dimple emerged in his cheek as he replied in kind, and she wondered if three smiles from him in five minutes was some sort of record. "I'll let you get some rest," he said, rising and moving away.

Jackson was about to open her book when she looked up to see another visitor standing by the empty seat next to her. Her lips curved. "Reid," she said, "join me?"

He smiled back awkwardly and sat down. "Um, so, I've been thinking," he began.

"Have you?"

He ducked his head and tucked a lock of hair a few shades lighter than her own behind his ear. "Yeah. Not philosophy."

"No," she said.

"Or literature."

"No."

"Ancient religion," he said, looking up to meet her eyes, "with a focus on religious ritual as it pertains to the divine feminine. Also ancient languages with a focus on religious folklore, specifically folklore about mystics and shamans. You're right; I never would've guessed."

Her clear green eyes narrowed. "You had Garcia run a background check."

He squirmed a little. "You've read my file!"

"Duh. I'm a spook. What do you think I do for a living?"

"You're a behavioral analyst with the BAU," he said with a brief grin.

"Oh. Right. Silly me. I should probably quit with the spy stuff, but old habits die hard. I guess that's Garcia's excuse for running a background check on me," she said.

He looked innocent. "I guess so." He fiddled with his watchband a moment. "Why such a focus on religion?" he said.

"Mmmm. Tricky question."

"Is it?"

"It shouldn't be." She sighed and let her gaze drift out the window to watch the sun play over the clouds. She tapped her thumb against the seat's armrest. Raked her hair away from her face. "I don't know what I am," she said at last.

He blinked. "I don't understand."

Her words were hesitant, unsure. She spoke like someone walking through a field of landmines. "It's…like we talked about last night. I'm a freak. I mean…who ever heard of an actual, real-life mind reader? That is…" She lowered her voice. "I'm not the only one, but that almost makes it…more freakish?" A frustrated frown. "Does that make any sense?"

"I guess so," he said, slowly. "You think religion might hold the key?"

She let out a brief laugh. "No. That is—not God, or the devil or anything like that—but we've had names for people who could hear voices since the beginning of time. Blessed, cursed, crazy." She shrugged. "Mystics, priestesses, oracles…maybe there's some truth in all those old stories."

"Hm. I guess I hadn't thought of it like that."

"Maybe it's a fool's errand, but I do like a mystery."

"You're in the right place for that," he said.

"I guess so." Their eyes met and held for a moment. "Anyway," she said, "looks like I owe you lunch."

"Nah. I cheated."

"Not technically. I said you couldn't peek at my file. I didn't say anything about Garcia. My own fault for not covering all my bases."

His face twisted in a grin, but it slowly morphed into something else. Worry, maybe. "You know, Jack, you did really good work on this case. We don't—" He broke off and cleared his throat. "We don't need you to use your ability if it—hurts you. You have plenty to contribute without it."

"I…" A bemused chuckle. "I don't think anyone's ever said that to me before."

"Wow, that's—really shitty. I'm sorry." Maybe the shittiest thing he'd ever heard. No wonder she was so defensive. No wonder she took every setback so hard.

Her eyes flicked away. Back. "I never thanked you for what you did in the basement."

He shifted in his seat. "It was nothing."

"Don't say that." She leaned toward him and tapped the back of his hand with one finger. "It was kind and generous and it mattered. Thank you."

"Yeah," he said. A smile lit up his pensive features. "Of course. We're a team, Jack. That's what we do."

"A team," she said. "That'll take some getting used to again."

"Hmm. Well, work on it. I think you're gonna be here a while."

She turned her head to study each of the agents as they went through their post-case rituals. Morgan had his headphones on. Hotch was working on a report. JJ flipped through a stack of case files. Gideon seemed to be sleeping.

A team. Their team. _Her_ team. It was why she'd come here, wasn't it? What she'd been looking for?

"You know what, boy genius?" she said. "I think you're probably right."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Aaand that's a wrap! For the second time. Look for the rewritten sequel, Reckoning, to be hitting newsstands soon. Reid and Jack get kidnapped! There's peril! And danger!


End file.
